Current Development in Thai democracy: From the military coup to a new Constitution

Transcription

1 Contesting Democracy: Thailand s Forum of the Poor Current Development in Thai democracy: From the military coup to a new Constitution Naruemon Thabchumpon Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University This paper investigates Thai democratisation process and its impacts on political participation at the grassroots. The research enquiry of this paper concerns the new political structure resulting from the 19 September 2006 military coup de tat and its 2007 agendas, which created political and socio-economic impacts to marginal movements, especially in relations to their campaigns for political participation and economic empowerment. The paper also discusses how various actors respond to the structural conditions provided by the 2007 Constitution and its political consequences at the grassroots. In the following sections, the paper first discusses the failure of Thailand s 1997 electoral reform and representative politics in dealing with party politics and the consolidation of power of the Thaksin government after the 2001 election. Second, the paper analyses the contentious politics and contradictory perceptions of democracy among civil society organisations and the middle-classes politics that led to the uninstitutionalising of Thai democracy. Finally, the paper answers the questions related to the opportunities and threats created by the 2007 Constitutional reform agenda to marginal movements and their democratic politics at the grassroots. Throughout this paper, I argue that Thai democracy has been paradoxical. Although there have been opportunities for grassroots movements and radical organisations to explore their perceptions of democracy, major challenges that seek to bring about substantive political reform in Thailand have not proved successful. Under the politics of a strong administration and authoritarian state, the possibility that progressive elements of civil society organisations may yet foster democracy in Thai society seems remote.

2 Electoral democracy in the Thai context and its limitation This section discusses the failure of Thailand s 1997 electoral reform and representative politics in dealing with party politics and the consolidation of power of the Thaksin government after the 2001 election. It argues that the antagonism between participatory democracy and a version of formal democracy which was categorised by many political commentators as a perversion of political reform was clearly evidenced in the 1997 reform agenda and during the political crisis of The problematic and contested nature of Thai democracy was abundantly illustrated by the military coup d etat of 19 September 2006, that elites still see themselves of having the right to override popular participation for their own ends. Thailand has a political history of long periods of authoritarianism alternating with periods of semi-democratic government. Since the installation of the first representative government in 1932, the military has interrupted the constitutional order more than 18 times, witnessing more than 20 changes of government and 16 written constitutions after the abolition of the absolute monarchy. The most recent coup happened in September 2006, when an elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown by the military group known as the Council of Democratic Reform for Constitutional Monarchy (CDR), which later removed the word for constitutional monarchy to avoid international criticism. The military justified its political interventions by using the Palace to show royal assent to the coup leader and to the selection of General Surayut Chulanonda, a Privy Council s member to serve as the interim Prime Minister after the 2006 coup (McCargo, 2006; The Nation 2006; Bangkok Post 2006). The political role of the royal family, largely created since the 1958 coup, has continued to be influential in politics. The King himself is an important actor for political changes in Thailand s politics. McCargo (2005: ) argues that the interventionist role of the Palace either the King himself or a member of his privy council in the Thai political process and political institutions including the elected parliament, has been apparent since McCargo examines the interventionist role of members of the Privy Council as a proxy network of the monarch, and Bamford and Chanida (2006: 2) argue that the action or inaction of the palace was largely seen as a political signal of 2

3 the monarch to politicians. Both Bamford and Chanida agree with McCargo that no political player have taken the risk of making a direct approach to the throne but rather that delicate feelers are put out to members of the Privy Council from time to time. In particular two former military commanders on the Privy Council have been canvassed: General Prem Tinasulanonda, the Chairman of the Council, during the political crisis and General Surayut Chulanonda in relation to the conflicts in the far South and as the interim Prime Minister after the 2006 coup. Democracy in the Thai context has been defined by the state only as electioneering democracy, by which is meant elections and access to the parliament. Thai politicians have often been described by the media as electioneers (nak leuktang), who are elected to office through vote buying rather than representatives (phutan puangchon); moreover, the same kinds of people have always been in power (Bangkok Post, 9 October 1997). According to McCargo (2003: 137), there are two modes of legitimacy, electoral and technocratic, that any government that wants to survive in Thai politics had to contend with. The former concerns forming the government: political parties, in order to gain the highest number of seats in the election, targeted the rural areas, which are notorious for the practice of vote-buying. The latter comes from a party s technocratic expertise in the eyes of the urban middle-classes. Both types of legitimacy are closely connected with the project of making the politics of representation work. The project was initiated by the proposal to set up an independent election commission to conduct free and fair elections (in order to be able to argue that the elected politicians were the real representatives, having obtained their mandate from the people) and the requirement that all candidates should possess a bachelor s degree (on the ground that educated politicians would make more competent administrators). This method of electoral reform was implemented through several constitutional mechanisms in 1997 agenda in order to create both kinds of legitimacy. The agenda of the 1997 Thai political reform aimed to make the country s political system more accountable, transparent and stable (Suchit, 2002: 4). Even though its preliminary concept addressed two types of politics - citizen s politics and politician s politics - the focus of the 1997 Constitution was on the politics of elected politicians. Underpinning these provisions was the desire on the part of the drafters to create legitimacy for elected politicians by eliminating vote-buying. An independent election 3

4 commission was created to supervise the electoral process to ensure free and fair elections. These institutional arrangements might fit with McCargo s analysis that different models of legitimacy could be observed from the different ways of the people in cities and rural areas viewed their politicians. Whilst from the perspective of people in Bangkok and the big cities the legitimacy of politicians came from their efficiency and technocratic, from the perspective of the rural electorates legitimacy came from the way candidates dealt with local and immediate problems at the grassroots in the style of patronage politics. Legitimacy is also related to what Connors (2002: 44-47) calls the neo-liberal agenda caused by the high tide of globalisation, which required a more transparent and accountable public administration of the Thai political system in order that efficiently compete in the world market. For neo-liberals, five elements of the qualities of good governance: accountability, transparency, predictability, participation and efficiency were guiding government policy, on the assumption that economic problems would be resolved if competent ministers ran the country and followed the formula of the liberal model of democracy. However, the capacity of these institutions to create a system of checks and balances was in question. Several independent mechanisms were gradually subverted by the incumbent government and coalition parties while the rhetoric on vote-buying was unable to help uproot corruption (Callahan, 2005: ). As a result of the failure of electoral reform, sophisticated forms of corruption and conflicts of interest in the executive branch became wide-spread, while the mechanisms of the independent institutions failed to eliminate those malpractices. The instillation of power of Thaksin s government after the 2001 election Under the 1997 Constitution, the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches was introduced to create more power and efficiency in the executive branch. As a result, there was a relatively strong government, especially after the January 2001 general election when the Thai Rak Thai party, led by telecom tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, won a landslide victory based partly on his political marketing scheme, which included a three-year debt moratorium for farmers, a thirty-baht flat free 4

5 health scheme across the country, and a one-million-baht revolving fund for every village. 1 According to McCargo and Ukrist (2005: ), the 2001 election had a substantial impact on Thai political system. The contradiction between the encouragement of citizens to form political parties (whose membership could be lowest as fifteen members) and the ideal system of allowing two big parties to compete for the privilege of running the country has resulted in a small number of large parties. Out of the 26 political parties competing in the 2001 election, only five received more than five per cent of the popular vote, while the Thai Rak Thai (literary Thais Love Thais ) gained the largest number of seats, with 200 members from single constituencies and 48 members from the partylists. This party became stronger after merging with the Seritham and New Aspiration Parties in 2002 and after fighting the 2005 election. Owning to the provisions of the election law, most small parties were eliminated after the 2001 election since they did not make the five percent requirement. Some parties that had barely survived ensured their future by selling themselves to the largest party. As a result, the system served to concentrated power in the hands of a large party without any guarantee of effective checks and balances. According to Kasian (2002: 339), Thaksin rise to power should be seen as an unstable intermixture of the different and conflicting demands, interests and concerns of both nationalist popular sentiments and oligarchic support. McCargo and Ukrist (2005: 10-15), argue that it should be seen as the result of combined effect of the 1997 reform agenda and the dissatisfaction of the Thai public with the performance of the Chuan government after the crisis. Pasuk and Baker (2002: 22-25), in contrast, regard Thaksin s victory as resulting from a combination of the extension of cronyism among domestic capitalists, political marketing, and rural mass paternalistic politics. Thai Rak Thai was launched on 14 July This party was a contradictory mixture of the new and old styles of Thai political parties. On the one hand, the TRT had a concrete policy platform and an administrative structure able to deal with its supposedly 1 The word populism as used in Thaksin s economic policy should be seen as denoting a marketing campaign to win lower-class support rather than as promoting a conservative localism that argues for a retreat from modernity and industrialisation toward agriculture and locality, which was advocated by some local NGOs (McCargo, 2001: , Pasuk and Baker, 2002: 2). 5

6 million members and their interests during its election campaigns. 2 On the other hand, the party continued to use personal connections and the patronage style of its core leaders to gain support, and the influence of money was quite obvious both in its dealing with both local politicians and local supporters. According to Phumtham (18 August 2002), the TRT benefited from the 1997 Constitution both in terms of policy implementation capacity and political leadership as the new Constitution helped strengthen the power of the Prime Minister in a sense that the PM can control the performance of his ministers and remove any incompetents without worrying about government stability. With support from the 1997 Constitution, the TRT government could implement its Thaksinomic policies and the CEO s administrative functions. The coinage of Thaksinomics by academics refers to the government s fiscal policy of boosting consumption and hence the domestic economy. The CEO designation was part of the government s marketing strategy, designed to suggest that the public sector would now borrow from private enterprise s management style (CPD s Newsletter, May-December 2001). Under Thaksin, the TRT party used a pseudo-participatory approach to formulate the marketing of its election campaign. 3 Before the 2001 election, for example, TRT organised workshops with farmers leaders in every region to focus on rural problems and solutions as a starting platform before asking its academic staff or technocrats to analyse the situation and put forward concrete proposals that would appeal to voters. In the 2005 election, the party did the same thing with different audiences before publishing its election manifesto. However, TRT did not adopt the policies suggested by its electorates but rather used them as forums for its publicity and marketing campaign. However, there was apparent contradiction between state efficiency and popular participation, which arose because of the fear that popular participation might be dangerous to the stability and efficiency of the political system if it was not carefully controlled. Throughout the 1997 Constitution, a three-pronged political reform package 2 TRT proposed to set up a national asset management company to buy the remaining bad loans from local banks, speed up state enterprise privatisation and listing on the stock exchange and shift funds to boost the rural economy. The party appealed to small and medium-sized businesses by proposing new loans for SME small and medium-sized enterprise - promotion under the one tambon one product project. It appealed to the poor and the lower class through its three-year debt moratorium for farmers and a one-million-baht revolving fund for every village in the country. 3 Phumtham Vejchayachai, Interview, 20 August

7 was introduced without touching on socio-economic disparities. Even though the Prime Minister had lunch on his first day in office at the Forum of the Poor s protest camp in front of Government House and delivered a public statement that poverty was a structural problem, his government continued to treat people s grievances with a legalistic approach. Thaksin himself did not believe that agricultural production was the way out of poverty, and sought to eradicate poverty by encouraging farmers to become entrepreneurship by getting loans from the government to open small businesses or selling local products with support from the state. According to Nithirat (1998: 2), people at the grassroots had to fight against the state on several issues that affected their livelihoods, since their definition of political reform was the re-distribution of land, income and progressive taxation. In the end, the failure of electoral reform was seen as an indictment of Thaksin s management style. The four years of the Thaksin government (between 2001 and 2005) reflected a complicated problematisation of this issue and the failure of electoral reform in Thai democracy after the setting of the 1997 political reform agenda. According to Thirayut (14 October 2004), the Thaksin government had produced GMO [genetically modified organisation] politics, which was complicated and highly developed in dealing with corrupt practices. The Prime Minister s family, friends and colleagues owned nearly every telecommunication and transportation company, ranging from a mobile phone company to the subway rail system. According to Pasuk and Baker (2004: ), money politics, which the 1997 Constitution had aimed to eliminate, was still practised but in a different way. The corruption of power by collusion between the senior bureaucracy and local politicians was replaced by bigger money and greater corruption from big business in a more sophisticated manner. Thai politics was then characterised by a typical political structure in which power was centralised in a bigbusiness political party that controlled the executive branch without any competent system of checks and balances, popular empowerment, decentralisation and scrutiny. Thai civil society and its contentious politics over the perception of democracy This section analyses the contentious politics and contradictory perceptions of democracy of civil society organisations and middle-class politics that led to the uninstitutionalising of Thai democracy. It argues that the definition of civil society is 7

8 controversial since its meaning and categorisation reflect the struggle for power among classes and social groups, and the different political positions of civil society organisations. The argument over the meaning of democracy among civil society organisations that lead to their contradictory political positions is clearly seen in the spectrum of civil society performances. In the Thai context, the decisions to include the state and business associations in Thai civil society have a political meaning and reflect the relationship between the state and civil society. As Connors (1999: 222) has commented, The notion of civil society is being taken up by elite reformers as a strategy for engendering a new public and individual morality around the liberal state. This conception of civil society delegitimises the social movement approach and oppositional politics. Since there is no equality of power among the members of civil society, those who have access to power may perceive political strategies and politics in a different way from those who do not have bargaining power. Because of the huge variations among Thai civil society organisations, this section presents the mapping of the civil society as a spectrum of economic and political perceptions in order to explore a variety of positions and illuminate the contested politics of these voluntary organisations. At one end of the spectrum are the elite-urban groups, civic movements and business associations that have strong bargaining power with the state and are highly commercialised and market-linked; and for them, democracy contains the liberal economic model with periodical elections of representatives, and technocratic projects. At the other end of the spectrum are the ruralpopular movements, grassroots organisations working with marginal groups in remote areas, which link between their economic conditions and the politics of representative democratic system as obvious and unbreakable connection. Various intermediate forms of civil society organisations can be placed between these two ends of the spectrum, as the transformation of the rural political economy has created links between the cities and rural areas. The intermediate scale of the civil society spectrum has a wide range of memberships, from middle class activists, professional groups, academic societies and the media to community and grassroots movements. The composition of these memberships is drawn from different sectors and is cross-class in affiliation and issuedbased in orientation rather than being an ideological or territorial grouping. This civic 8

9 politics goes from anti-corruption campaigns, election monitoring and consumer protection to public health advocacy and environmental awareness. The argument over the meaning of democracy is clearly seen in the spectrum of civil society performances. Regarding the related issues of democracy and participation, civil society organisations also have various perceptions of political participation. At one end of the spectrum, civil society groups may see political participation only as a procedure of selecting representatives or delivering a mandate to competent politicians. They may fear the excessive participation represented by popular protests and various kinds of uncontrollable political actions. At the other end of the spectrum, broad-based and widespread participation is seen as a vital concept for deepening democracy, which required an open space that encourages understanding and tolerance in order to allow the diversity of demands and rights claimed by various social movements in the political community. In 1997, although the 1997 Constitution opened a channel for popular movements and grassroots groups to participate in politics at the policy level, this channel is limited to procedures. Because of the belief that democracy can be taught, several projects on democratic education about the rights and responsibilities of citizens were conducted all over the country without, however, attempting to adjust the structures and relations of power among the conflict partners. In the end, the grand-scale project of the 1997 reform did not solve the problem of inequality of access to natural resources which affected the poor. It instead created the potential for the further frustration of grassroots groups, who were forced to abide by the rigid participatory mechanisms provided by the Charter. But since the 1997 mechanisms could not resolve the conflicts, the poor continued to take to the streets if they wanted their concerns to be considered by the state. In Thailand, most civil society organisations are not efficient. Many of them are not membership-based organisations but are dependent on outside financial resources and less substantial civic actions. These factors reduce their autonomy and capacity. Thai civil society, therefore, is in a vulnerable situation, prone to co-option by the state and powerful groups. The state, in contrast, has the resources to create and implement its own agenda, but the involvement of state officials tends to distort the nature of civic 9

10 action and the state tends to dominate citizen politics in Thailand. Thus a tension inevitably arises between the dependency and the autonomy of Thai civil society. One example was the divided opinions among civil society organisations on the justification of the 2006 military coup against the Thaksin government. After landslide victories in two elections in 2001 and 2005, the Thaksin government enjoyed a huge majority in the parliament and ruled with a strong hand and blind arrogance. Alongside endemic corruption, Thaksin s war on drugs and bellicose approach to the conflict in the Malay Muslim majority Southern border region resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Critics and opponents were crushed, and Thaksin increasingly polarized the country. His strong support came mostly from rural constituencies and in the upper half of the country while the anti-thaksin movement was concentrated among educated urban people and in southern half of the country. Bangkok itself was divided. According to Chaiwat (2006), those in favour of the 2006 military coup or felt that it was no other efficient choice would argue in a variety of views. For example, some argued that the coup was staged to prevent the continuing conflict situation from sinking deeper into violence, and possibly a civil war between two armed groups, one in support of Thaksin and those who opposed him; the coup was perceived on the ground that it was a preventive measure. Other who believed that the coup did not kill the 1997 Constitution because it was already dead long ago at the hands of the Thaksin government by rendering all independent monitoring channels and autonomous agencies ineffective through its control of capital, people and the media. Even though there was a furious debate among academia and civil society organisation on whether this coup should be considered as a conflict between a dictatorship and a democracy, many argued that Thai democracy faced a problem of how to deal with a democratically-elected government that was responsible for so much violence and the abuse of power during the last five years of its consolidating process. The contestation over the meaning of democracy was clearly evidenced in the political crisis of 2006 when Prime Minister Thaksin dissolved the parliament after facing strong protest against his telecommunication-selling and tax evasion scandal. While the PM claimed thumping majorities in two elections with more than 10 million votes won by the Thai Rak Thai party, and was cleared of wrong-doing by the courts, various 10

11 movements and civil society organisations joined calls for the ouster of the Prime Minister. By law, Thaksin should have been banned from politics for five years in 2001 following his conviction for false declaration of assets if the formal democracy had been functioning properly. Many advocates for the 1997 political reform such as Prawase Wasi, Theerayut Boonmee and Gothom Arya even argued for a new round of Thai political reform with a new process of constitutional amendments (Manager, February 2006). In the end, the conflicts were intensified to the point that the opponents started to believe Thaksin was so demonised and worse than Suharto or the military regime in Myanmar and that democratic means were not appropriate solutions. However, those who disagreed with the 2006 coup would argue that this military coup was unjustified in many ways. For example, according to Chaiwat (2006), despite the coup was bloodless, it was still be considered as a violent solution of solving political conflicts and transferring the power. To accept violent solution to political problem could also be seen as a sign of despair of the country and its inability to handle the transitional process of democratisation process. Moreover, according to Thongchai (2006), the September 2006 coup should be seen as a royalist plot that used the intensifying conflicts to keep the power of the Palace and its network as the kingmaker in Thai politics. The accusation that Thaksin showed disrespected towards the monarchy masked a far deeper tension between Thaksin and the palace that had been well-known but could not be discussed openly in Thailand. Over the years Thaksin had replaced the palace s people in the military and in key bureaucratic agencies with his own men; he even patronized some princes and princesses and his financial influence over these royals was alarming --especially given the acute situation currently faced by the throne. To the royalists, therefore, Thaksin was a threat to the critical juncture of the next Monarch in a sense that he appeared to be seen as a man who looked for himself the role of kingmaker. This analysis can be confirmed through certain articles of the incoming 2007 Constitution, such as the power and political role of the Privy Council, the make-up of the Senate and the establishment of a group of leaders to run the country during the national crisis. 11

12 Grassroots movement and radical organisations after the 2007 agenda This section considers the opportunities and threats created by the so-called 2007 Constitutional reform agenda and its impacts on marginal movements and their democratic politics at the grassroots. It argued that to solve the problem of Thailand democratic deficit, the notion of democracy needed to be reconsidered in a deeper sense than holding periodical elections and creating the links between representatives and their electorates. What was needed was a participatory and deliberative model of democracy that directly involved citizens in discussion and policy formulation. The Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) had just presented its first draft of the 2007 Constitution. There were five key issues as follows: the establishment of a special committee to solve national crisis; the reduction of numbers of constituency and partylist MPs; the appointment of the Senators; the elected Prime Minister; and the appointment of the interim cabinet during the election period. Among these key issues, the most controversial points were the appointment of 160 senators from various professionals and the establishment of a special committee during the national crisis. Although several articles of the draft 2007 Constitution were seen as the expansion of civil rights and the increasing power of independent organisations, the main concern of such Constitution mainly focused on power politics and the containment of electoral democracy. In the context of the 2007 agenda, it can be argued that the idea of popular participation and un-organised protests is limited and not accepted by the public. Radical movements that use street politics will find they have less bargaining power to counteract the state and may face the problem of being regarded as illegitimate from a strictly legalistic perspective. From the state s point of view, it will not be appropriate to use the politics of direct action without first trying all legal processes and institutional channels. The middle class and urban dwellers are also reluctant to support such movements, as they were concerned about the instability of the formal political institutions. It can be forecasted that although radical movements and marginal organisations at the grassroots may attempt to create collective actions performed by different grassroots movements coming together to form a broad coalition of democratic forces, the possibility of success is still in question. 12

13 This antagonism between participatory democracy and a version of formal democracy which was categorised by many political commentators as a perversion of political reform was evidenced again in the political crisis of 2006 when Prime Minister Thaksin dissolved the parliament after facing strong protest against his telecommunicationselling and tax evasion scandal. While the PM claimed thumping majorities in two elections with more than 10 million votes won by the Thai Rak Thai party, and was cleared of wrong-doing by the courts, various progressive and democratic civil society organisations joined calls for the ouster of the Prime Minister. By law, Thaksin should have been banned from politics for five years in 2001 following his conviction for false declaration of assets if the formal democracy had been functioning properly. Many advocates for the 1997 political reform such as Prawase Wasi, Theerayut Boonmee and Gothom Arya even argued for a new round of Thai political reform with a new process of constitutional amendments (Manager, February 2006). Conclusion This paper has investigated Thailand politics after the 1997 reform agenda and its limitation that lead to the 2006 military coup and its 2007 constitutional agenda. In order to analyse the political consequences resulting from those conditions, the paper examined the contradictions of the 1997 reform and its limitation to electoral democracy and representative politics in Thailand. The paper argued that although several institutional mechanisms were introduced with a high expectation that they would create opportunities for greater citizen participation and deepen the process of democracy, the outcome of the reform was a technocratic democracy with a one- man show style of administration. The grand-scale project of the 1997 reform could not solve the problem of the inequality of access to natural resources by the poor. It instead created a threat to popular movements and de-legitimated any form of grassroots politics outside the parliamentary and representative paradigm. The paper also argued that the problematic categorisation of civil society components and the unequal power relations between state and civil society organisations created a process of co-option of civil society by the state. After the 2001 election, moreover, the concentration of power in the hands of the executive became apparent whilst electorates were regarded as mere customers in the political market, who were waiting for the state 13

14 to deliver its political products and citizen participation was limited for the sake of the national interest and economic prosperity. This limited democracy was not only unable to resolve economic and environmental conflicts occurring at the grassroots, but it also had a negative impact on the institutionalising process of Thai democracy. Throughout this paper, I have argued that different perceptions of democracy were clearly voiced within the sphere of Thai democracy discourse. After the 2006 coup, the role of the state was even more significant as it had political implications for the reform agenda and people s participation in Thailand. The politics of co-option and of confrontation between state and civil society organisations also became apparent. The advocacy of extensive popular participation, input and empowerment from below had brought about a debate on the contested perceptions of Thai democracy. Bibliography Amara Pongsapich (1999), Politics of Civil Society, Southeast Asian Affairs Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp Anand Panyarachun (2002), Keynote speech on the Fifth Anniversary of the 1997 Constitutional Reform, Bangkok Post, 10 October Bamford, A. and Chanida Chanyapate (2006), The Monarchy and Political Crisis in Thailand during Thaksin s Period, 6 March 2006(unpublished document). Bangkok Post Economic Review Mid-Year Bangkok Post Economic Review Year-End Callahan, W. (2005), The Discourse of Vote Buying and Political Reform in Thailand, Pacific Affairs, 78, 1, Spring 2005, pp Chaiwat (2006), The Moral Enigma of the 9/19 Popular coup d etat, Bangkok Post. Connors, M. (2002), Framing the People s Constitution, in Duncan McCargo (ed.), Thai Political Reform, Denmark: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, (2002), Democracy and national identity in Thailand, London: Routledge. Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, BE (1997), Published in the Government Gazette, Vol. 114, Part 55a, dated 11 October Kasian Tejapira (2002), Post-Crisis Economic Impasse and Political Recovery in Thailand: The Resurgence of Economic Nationalism, Critical Asian Studies, London: Routledge, 34, 3, (2003) Thaksin s Regime and the Political Culture of Counter 14

15 Reform, a public speech to commemorate two years under Thaksin and human rights violations in Thailand, 9 February Mathichon Newspaper McCargo, D. (2002), Understanding Political Reform in Thailand, in McCargo, D. (ed.), Reforming Thai Politics, Denmark: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. McCargo, D. and Ukrist Pathamanand The Thaksinization of Thailand, Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. Nithirat Sapsoomboon (1998), Discussion on the Good Governance from the Conception of the Poor. Pasuk Pongpaichit and Baker, C. (2004), Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand, Chiangmai: Silkworm Books. Phumtham Vechayachai, interview, 18 August 2002, Suchit Boonbongkan, (2002), Speech on the fifth year evaluation of the 1997 Constitutional Reform. Theerayut Boonmee (2004), Four Years of Thaksin Regime: The Path to a One Party System of Thai Rak Thai, Speech of four year evaluation after 2001 election. Thongchai Vinichakul (2006), A Royalist Coup with Ulterior Motives, The Nation. 15