Next Friday (18 May) I will present a public seminar at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. (The University announcement is here.) Here are the details:
The rural constitution (รัฐธรรมนูญชาวบ้าน) and the everyday politics of elections in northern Thailand
Friday 18 May, 2007, 10.00-12.00.
Faculty of Political Science
Meeting Room 12 (2nd floor )
Kasem Uttayanin Building (Building 3)
Chulalongkorn University
I will present an edited version of my paper on the rural constitution, previously featured on New Mandala. Here is the abstract:
The Thai coup of
19 September 2006 derived ideological legitimacy from the view that the Thaksin government’s electoral mandate was illegitimate because it had been “bought” from an unsophisticated and easily manipulated electorate. There is nothing new about this argument, nor its use in justifying military interference. Political commentators have regularly asserted that the Thai populace, and especially the rural populace, lacks the basic characteristics essential for a modern democratic citizenry. Accounts of the deficiencies of rural voters often focus on their parochialism, their lack of political sophistication, the vulnerability to vote buying and the influence of electoral canvassers (hua khanaen). In this paper I challenge this negative portrayal of rural electoral culture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in northern Thailand, I argue that the everyday politics of elections is informed by a range of different electoral values that shape judgements about legitimate, and illegitimate, political power in electoral contexts. These local values can be usefully thought of as comprising a “rural constitution.”
There will be plenty of time for questions, discussion and debate. All welcome!
6 responses so far ↓
1 jeru // May 13, 2007 at 12:08 am
I got very dizzy reading your abstract Andrew, lost in the translation? Until I got to ” rural constipation” and I finally I got it!
2 Lleij Schwartz // May 13, 2007 at 5:45 pm
What’s the matter, jeru? Forgot your “Talking-Dict”?
3 jeru // May 13, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Often with Andrew, my ‘Talking-Dict’ would be of little help. Makes me wonder sometimes whether Andrew, along with a few others ANU alumni who post at New Mandala, were intentionally being cruel to 2ndLanguage trained readers like me.
But reading Mr. Stiglitz (thanks to Vichai N) was specially easy (no Talking Dict necessary!).
When people are writing with real substance, they (like Mr. Stiglitz), I appreciate their making that special effort to not let pretensions get in the way.
4 Peter Kauffner // May 14, 2007 at 3:33 am
Thaksin has a lot of support in Bangkok as well, so I too reject the idea that he was elected because he bribed the hicks into voting for him. His crackdown on drugs was hugely popular, and few pervious prime ministers can claim any dramatic positive accomplishment of this kind. Thailand uses proportional representation, so TRT represention in parliament was a result of people voting for the national party. It can’t be explained by the theory the peasents voted for a “big man” MP because they believed he would pave a road or address some other purely local concern.
5 anonymous // May 14, 2007 at 7:41 am
Peter, the answer is voodoo, Khmer voodoo. Thaksin bribed the forces of darkness to get people to overlook his evils and vote for him. Seriously.
6 New Mandala » A friendly reception // May 18, 2007 at 10:29 pm
[...] today I presented my paper on the “rural constitution” to a seminar in the Political Science Faculty at Chulalongkorn University (thanks to MAIDS for hosting the [...]
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