Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2016
Among the most interesting questions in Thai politics today is how to account for the rise and (until recently) the success of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party. This article describes and analyzes some of the factors that contributed to the rise and success of Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai, arguing that neither Thaksin's personal assets nor the effects of the crisis are enough to explain Thai Rak Thai's rise and success. It focuses instead on the 1997 changes to Thailand's constitution. These institutional reforms were crucial because they altered Thailand's political-institutional landscape in fundamental ways. The reforms provided new opportunities and incentives for political actors that Thaksin and his party adeptly took advantage of. The argument presented is that the key reforms that helped pave the way for the rise of Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai were those reforms that helped reduce the number of political parties and that increased the power of the prime minister relative to coalition partners and intraparty factions.
An earlier version of this article was prepared for the International Conference of Constitutional Reform in the Philippines, Antipolo City, Metro Manila, Philippines, July 8–9, 2005. I thank participants at that conference for their comments and am also grateful for the comments of attendees at talks at Stanford's Asia-Pacific Research Center, Michigan State University's Asian Studies Center, and the University of Michigan's Southeast Asian Public Lecture Series. Special thanks to Sombat Chantavong, Michael Nelson, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.Google Scholar
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