I’ve just finished reading Paul Ginsborg’s Democracy: Crisis and Renewal. It’s a short book (just 124 pages) but there is a lot in it that could contribute to ongoing debates about the future of democracy in Thailand. It’s relevance to Thailand should come as no surprise given that Ginsborg is also the author of a study of Silvio Berlusconi whose billionaire authoritarianism is often compared to that of Thaksin Shinawatra.
Ginsborg argues that electoral democracy is in crisis throughout the world. He describes a crisis of quality rather than quantity. There are now more democratic countries than ever. But within these countries there is growing disillusionment with the democratic process. People increasingly feel that political parties don’t have their interests at heart. Political processes are dominated by big capital. Cronyism, clientism and corruption are rampant. The public has withdrawn into the self-interested private sphere of consumption and television viewing.
Disillusionment with democracy is reflected in diminishing voter turnout in electoral contests. Ginsborg cites declining voting figures from the European Union. In the European Parliament elections of 2004 less than half of the electorate voted in many western European countries. In Eastern Europe the situation was even worse: 38.5% in Hungary, 28.3% in the Czech Republic and only 17% in Slovakia. “Although there are many reasons for these figures,” Ginsborg writes, “there is one that all shared – the feeling among large swathes of the European electorate that participation in the democratic process had little meaning.” (34)
I’m not convinced that voter turnout in European Parliament elections is a useful barometer of international democratic sentiment – nor that the cited figures are really so bad for non-national elections – but Ginsborg cogently pursues the common argument that elections, although necessary, are insufficient for sustaining a modern vibrant democracy. His focus on electoral disillusionment resonates with the sentiments of many commentators (and street protesters) in Thailand. Notwithstanding healthy voter turnouts in recent elections, and research that points to high levels of voter satisfaction with democracy, many commentators argue that Thai political life has been hollowed out, leaving only an electocratic facade. Many would read Ginsborg’s cautionary words as a fair assessment of the state of democracy under Thaksin and his People Power Party allies:
Democracy has many enemies waiting in the wings: politicians and movements that are for the moment constrained to play by its rules, but whose real animus is quite another – populist, manipulative of the modern media, intolerant and authoritarian. They will seize their chance if we do not reform our democracies swiftly. (12)
So much for crisis. What about renewal?
Ginsborg is an advocate for participatory democracy. Electoral democracy, whereby voters chose representatives who then act on their behalf with little direct accountability until the next election, needs to be combined with the active participation of an engaged and critical citizenry. Citizens need to be drawn out of their private sphere of consumption and conformity into a public sphere of debate, deliberation and decision making. We need more “active and dissenting citizens” (44).
What might these active and dissenting citizens look like? Like People’s Alliance for Democracy protesters performing their ablutions in the grounds of Government House? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Ginsborg presents a model whereby families are “connected to civil society by means of thriving networks of autonomous organisations” (48). He acknowledges the limitations of civil society, but places a strong emphasis on involvement in NGOs and on forms of “deliberative democracy.” His favourite case study is the participatory budgeting process adopted in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. A series of meetings, at various spatial scales, are held in which citizens (and their delegates) contribute to the formation of the city’s spending program. In 2002 over 30,000 of the city’s 1.3 million residents participated in the process. Final budgetary decisions in Porto Alegre are made by elected representatives but their power and responsibility is “modified, enriched and institutionally constrained by the deliberative and participatory activity that is taking place around them” (71).
Ginsborg presents a compelling case for a more meaningful and engaged form of democracy. His argument is strengthened, not weakened, by his open acknowledgement of the practical limitations of participatory approaches to democracy. But in this book (and I haven’t had a chance to read his other works) there seems to be a more fundamental limitation in his argument. This limitation lies in his focus on institutions rather than culture. His approach to electoral democracy is informed by an image, if I can simplify somewhat, of institutionally disengaged, television-watching families who occasionally emerge from their private spheres to cast desultory and conformist votes. Participatory democracy, by contrast involves active citizenship – joining organisations, attending meetings and forming committees. The electoral citizen is a passive recipient of government handouts. The participatory citizen is engaged in the budget process itself.
These two visions of democracy risk overlooking a vast cultural substratum of political engagement. Political debate, discussion and dissent takes place in all sorts of informal contexts that few would associate with Ginsborg’s more institutional vision of civil society. Ginsborg acknowledges the political importance of family life (and this is pursued in another of his books) but his conclusion is that “under modern consumer capitalism most families … are overwhelmingly conformist … and self-absorbed” (47). I’m not so sure. Whatever the faults of the media, modern families have an unprecedented view of the political process and can reflect, practically in real time, on the decisions of their elected representatives. Absorption in, and reflection on, the modern realities of household economy readily translates into political discussion and dissent. Interest rates, fuel prices, food prices, education polices, infrastructure funding and affordable health care are politically volatile issues in many countries precisely because they represent points of intersection between government decision making and the aspirations and anxieties of families. “Populist” governments can be easily condemned for their lack of attention to participatory inclusion but they are often finely attuned to the “kitchen table” deliberations of their electorate. I’m not convinced that this vast informal substratum of political activism is any less significant for sustaining democracy than the mobilisation of a small percentage of the population in a municipal budget process.
In recent decades Thailand has witnessed a dramatic growth in the strength and diversity of its civil society. The 1997 constitution had specific provisions for citizen participation and strengthened the role of local communities. This was certainly a positive development. Many feel that Thaksin rode rough-shod over these important reforms, using his electoral dominance, legal opportunism and brute force to neuter the 1997 constitution’s more participatory elements. The recent citizen activism pursued by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) can be interpreted, in part, as a response to attempts by Thaksin and his People Power Party heirs to assert the primacy of electoral mandates over civil society engagement. I doubt Ginsborg’s model of “active and dissenting” citizens would extend as far as the PAD’s coup-courting provocation, but his book is a useful reminder of the importance of maintaining an appropriate balance between representative and participatory modes of democratic government. The vibrancy, diversity and effectiveness of Thailand’s civil society needs to be protected and nurtured.
But we shouldn’t get too carried away by the democratic allure of civil society. In democratic systems most people chose to participate in informal and often barely visible ways. The vast majority of people in Thailand make their political wishes known not by signing up for civil society endorsed activism but by going quietly to the ballot box and casting their vote. We need to be careful that in promoting participatory democracy we don’t delegitimize the idiosyncratic values, motives, knowledge and anxieties that individuals take to the ballot box when they choose their representatives. This informal political culture also needs vigorous defence. Civil society organisations in Thailand could play an important role in this defence but many of them seem luke warm about electoral power because elections produce governments that they don’t like. Active and dissenting citizenship needs to be informed by respect for, and acceptance of, the views of those who engage with politics in different ways.
17 responses so far ↓
1 David Brown // Nov 20, 2008 at 2:44 pm
interesting….
my quick scan tells me Ginsborg thesis is that democracy needs to be distributed, not just national but regional, towns, villages need participatory democracy
setting time limits and requiring elections for people at each level seems the way to introduce this quickly…
I think Thaksin annoyed a lot of officials by limiting their terms but sounds like he was trying to distribute democracy
there is tension in democratic states because of the capitalist business structure that has built itself on top of the underlying democracy
the next stage after political democracy is industrial democracy, enforcing democratic structures into capitalism, requiring acceptance of democratic unionism in workers, requiring democratic processes within business management and boards, and co-incidently into the military
Thailand is just discovering the benefit sand opportunities of political democracy and perhaps this is why the PAD and their traditional power-based backers are reacting so badly because they recognise that the next stage will directly affect the relationships between them and the workers in their businesses
2 Sidh S. // Nov 20, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Thanks Andrew for the brilliant review of a very timely book. I hope to get a copy of Ginsborg’s book soon.
3 doctorJ // Nov 20, 2008 at 4:33 pm
If your main concern is the current ongoing political “dogfight” in Thailand, I must emphasize that it’s only a power play between two “big brother”. Democracy has nothing to do with this .
Would Democrat party become government today, PAD will pack up and go home in no time, no more cry for coup, no more cry for any changes at all. It is that simple and true!
4 Jonathan Head // Nov 20, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I remember Paul Ginsborg very well as an uber-cool Marxist lecturer when I was at Cambridge 27 years ago. I seem to recall he was a member of the hard-left SWP, and an expert on Gramsci. He was a strong advocate of extra-parliamentary action as a necessary part of a healthy democracy, as you’d expect from the SWP. From the tone of this book his views seem to have mellowed over the years, although he was never a rigid ideologue.
5 David Brown // Nov 20, 2008 at 7:36 pm
doctorJ…
thank you for you assurance that the PAD would pack up if the Democrats formed the government
This could happen if the Democrats cleaned themselves of their links to the PAD and then approached the minor parties and any PPP defectors to form an alternate coalition
Is this how you see it could happen?
Ummm before we get too far along this track… what are your bona fides for knowing what the PAD will accept?
How do you know this to be true?
and, as they say in the spy books, why should we believe you?
6 jonfernquest // Nov 20, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I can’t imagine anyone claiming that democracy in Thailand is not participatory. Protests by locals dictate the course of major business plans throughout the country, for iron smelters in Prachuap Khiri Khan, potash mines in Isan, coal driven electricity generation plants along the eastern seaboard. Senator Rosana’s dogged pursuit of PTT would certainly qualify as participatory democracy as well as auditor general Jaruvan and her protege the auditor turned senator who brought down Samak. Sometimes it is a small group of people participating very intensively, paying attention to and questioning to all the details that make all the difference. On the other hand, some of the most innovative legislation was sweeped through the post-coup parliament at the end of its tenure, like limiting bank lending to family and close associates, perhaps ideas from the permanent bureucracy that could never make it through the big money vested interests of a fully elected parliament.
“His favourite case study is the participatory budgeting process adopted in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. A series of meetings, at various spatial scales, are held in which citizens (and their delegates) contribute to the formation of the city’s spending program. In 2002 over 30,000 of the city’s 1.3 million residents participated in the process.”
Sounds like, unlike provincial Thailand, there is a well-developed critical local media or how else would so many people learn about the such details. Clearly there is not even participation by full parliament right now in Thailand with a lot of policy being executed by cabinet decree, just like the later Thaksin years, and seemingly popping out of nowhere with details that obviously haven’t gone over with a fine tooth comb by anyone much less the broad public (e.g. the recently scrapped air-conditioned Bangkok bus leasing programme that seemed to benefit some special interest, or Chaiya as public health minister, where exactly did his mandate come from to reverse compulsory licensing of AIDS medications, Big Pharma lobbies?, or the six measures six months programme that skipped poor apartment dwellers in its electricity subsidy and subsidized rich gas guzzling SUVs in its fuel tax reduction).
I would say overall the details are important and that politics is a patchwork of participation and non-participation depending on where you look.
7 Soraj Hongladarom // Nov 21, 2008 at 12:04 am
While some may see in Ginsborg’s article something that shores up their argument on behalf of the PAD in support of their distrust of representative democracy, I think his analysis misses the point when it comes to Thailand in particular. For whatever that Thaksin has done for the country, one thing he did not seem to encourage was particularly the kind of participatory, low-level kind of democracy Ginsborg talks about.
What I have in mind is that, when he was in power, Thaksin tried to centralize power ever more strongly to his hands, and his administration did not devolve power and decision regarding budgetary process or anything to the extent that a working small-scale democracy could really develop in the villages or tambons. Surely we have the Or-Bor-Tor (Tambon Organization Administration), but it does not seem to be a place where really active participatory democracy happens.
The ideal, of course, is that the Or-Bor-Tor or the village become breeding ground for genuine democracy. It could become a forum where deliberation takes place, something that the populace really feel belong to them. But in Thailand instead of democracy taking roots from the grass roots up, it was the opposite.
8 Srithanonchai // Nov 21, 2008 at 5:20 pm
This June, I happened to have bought and read the German translation of this essay (on the recommendation of a left-leaning German friend). It is well written, but idealistic and intellectually thoroughly uninspiring. So, I still regret having spent the Euro 9.90 it cost me.
9 Docdiogenes // Nov 21, 2008 at 6:19 pm
What ‘democracy’? Surely what we have here in Thailand is a kind of mentality of governaning through interminable crisis-Thai-ness, civility under attack- and emergency whereby the norm of Thai insecurity and politicsis a state of exception, exceptional state wherein he who ‘defines’ the emergency is sovereign’ which rather expends those candidates liable to ‘lese majeste’ accusations?
10 Srithanonchai // Nov 21, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Let’s see how the renewed “Thai democracy” will look like after the PAD’s attempt this Sunday to bring down not only the “puppet government of tyrants” but also the “Thaksin-system slave assembly” (aka the “democratically elected House of Representatives”).
The good news is that the ECT can limit its role to overseeing local elections, while it can save about two billion baht for national elections, because the PAD will appoint members of their bed-fellow Democrat party, and some sympathetic members of the Bangkok elite, to the House. That’s what the PAD calls “Thai-style People’s Democracy.”
Anybody for making the North and the Northeast independent from Bangkok and the South?
11 Joy // Nov 21, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I had a chance to listen to a lecture by Paul Ginsborg a while back at Sydney Uni. He discussed two concepts of freedom: positive and negative freedom and argued that what is lacking in Italian democracy is the promotion of positive freedom (by positive freedom, he means the people ’s capacity to participate in setting up rules or system that work for the benefit of the people as a whole, and the ability to adhere to this agreed upon rules or laws. Negative freedom, on the other hand, is the ‘freedom from’– or in other words, the freedom to do what one pleases– a privilege, in short, and clientism (patron-client relationship) can enhance negative freedom, but damage positive freedom). I think these two concepts of freedom have relevance to the Thai political life. Thailand also has a long history of clientism, and poor development of ‘positive freedom” ( grassroots people are not familiar with decision-making or genuine democratic process, democratic ideals are not made part of everyday life). I tend to agree with Sindh s. — that Taksin didn’t try to promote positive freedom but rather undermine it. On the other hand, the one who has consistantly tried to promote ‘positive freedom’ or participatory democracry at the local level is Dr Prawese Wasi. I see so many parallels in Dr Prawase’s concepts of grassroots democracy and Paul Ginsborg’s idea of positive freedom.
12 chris baker // Nov 22, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Ginsborg’s book on Berlusconi and ours on Thaksin were reviewed in tandem in a couple of journals. In 1966, he had supervised me in my first term in Cambridge when he had just finished his PhD and was not yet the famous historian of Italy that he has since become. He was a superb teacher. After the reviews, I sent him the Thaksin book and we talked about something collaborative but it came to nothing.
I haven’t read this essay, but I’ve read several of his books on Italy. He’s brilliant at combining national-level political and economic analysis along with evocations of everyday individual and family life – a sort of leftist-humanistic historiography which draws on Gramsci but also on Habermas and similar thinkers. As with most modern historians of Italy, the issue of Fascism is never very far from the surface of his writings, especially the question of conformity – how Fascist regimes thrived on the passive conformity of so many ordinary citizens. Remember Bertolucci’s wonderful film The Conformist. Ginsborg’s yearning for an active citizenry should probably be seen in this context.
He’s not the first to write about Europe on this theme. There’s now a big literature about the domination of formal politics by business and technocracy, and the eruption of wayward movements of popular and populist protest in reaction. What seems interesting from Andrew’s short summary is Ginsborg’s attempt to expand this theme to the globe.
It’s difficult to think of Thai politics being “hollowed out” since that assumes that it was once “filled in” or “solid” in the past, whereas what seems to me to be happening right now is exactly such a process of “filling in” something that was earlier rather sparse and empty. People are being mobilized to contest for rights, budgets, and other political goods in ways that are quite new.
Thanks for this, Andrew. I look forward to reading it.
13 Srithanonchai // Nov 22, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Readers might want to compare Ginsborg’s essay with a similarly-focused earlier text:
Benjamin R. Barber. 1998. A Place For Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong. New York: Hill and Wang. 166 pp.
14 Sidh S. // Nov 24, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Srithanonchai #8 “Anybody for making the North and the Northeast independent from Bangkok and the South?”
As a Thai, I am totally against it of course. However, I just mentioned that possibility in an answer to Doglover on another topic. It came from a quote from a PPPLamphun MP in Thairath last week (with my rough translation):
“สำคัญจากปาก ‘ทักษิณ’”
in
http://203.151.217.76/news.php?section=politics&content=112086
ยังมีฮาร์ดคอร์กว่า กับคิวของนายสงวน พงษ์มณี ส.ส.ลำพูน พรรคพลังประชาชน ทะลุกลางปล้องเลยว่า วันนี้ประตูของสงครามประชาชนเปิดขึ้นแล้ว มีความเป็นรูปธรรมมากขึ้น และหากกระบวนการยุติธรรมยังไม่สามารถบังคับใช้กฎหมายได้กับคนทุกกลุ่ม
(… There are even more hardcore views from Saguan Pongmanee, PPP Lamphun MP, who without holding back, said that today the door to civil war between Thais is already opened and is getting more real. And if the judiciary process cannot enforce the law on every group…)
จุดสิ้นสุดคือความแตกแยกของประเทศ
(… the end point is the division of the country.)
“หากร้ายที่สุดอาจถึงขั้นแบ่งแยกประเทศ เช่นเดียวกับโซเวียตยุคสุดท้ายแน่นอน”
(”The worse possibility is the division of the country, surely like the final era of the Soviet Union”)
For me it is impossible because I believe (rightly or wrongly) that the overwhelming majority of Thais will be against it. Secondly, there a better chance of returning to a military dictatorship than a division of Thailand…
But, as an academic excercise consistent with the issues raised by this post, I think it is worth entertaining. The questions I pose:
- What kind of democracy would a country under PMThaksin/PPP/UDD, ruling over Thailand’s north and northeast and with the capital at Chiang Mai, turn out to be like?
- What kind of demcracy dominated by the Democrats/PAD in the central and south of Thailand turn out to be?
- They will likely be mortal enemies – what impact would this have on the geo-politics of the region?
15 Joy // Nov 24, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I’m from the North of Thailand but I’m not pro-taksin, and I don’t fancy having him as a top leader for Northerners at all.
However, I ‘m tempted to respond to the above post. I’m not sure if my following comment will outrage a lot of Thais or not. Well,.. I’ll give it a go though. I don’t think it’s that bad at all if the governing power is more decentralized than it is now.. Bangkok has been asserting firm control over other Thai regions for an age.. and whether u like it or not, local culture , language and way of life have been damaged by this ongoing hegemony.. I think the South is a more extreme case– I don’t think anyone can deny that the current violence and suffering in the South is largely a result of the imposition of BKK norms and standards on Southerners who hold on to different set of religious and cultural belief(s) and practice(s). Of course, maltreatment, bias, prejudice are part of this attempt to assimilate Southerners.
I don’t think ‘national unity’ is unproblematic. In fact, we really need to question this promotion of ‘national unity’ especially if it comes at the expense of regional/local autonomy, or if it requires the use of force to suppress local specificities and difference.
16 Ralph Kramden // Nov 24, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Sidh, not that it matters so much, but I believe the first suggestions of a division of the country came from the PAD stage as did suggestions of civil war. That these views are now taken up by some on both sides is interesting.
Nation and Monarchy seem to be in play. And religion as well following the peaceful red shirt rally at Wat Suan Kaew?
17 Sidh S. // Nov 25, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Whoops, the reply to Doglover I referred to in #12 has not passed NM’s censors (yet)? (There was nothing controversial there).
Anyway, KhunJoy, thankyou for your comments – and I agree with your sentiments and that “national unity” should not exclude cultural diversity. And at the end of day, even if PMThaksin was originally from Chiang Mai, the current political civil war is between groups of Bangkok-based elites and their interests. The rest of the country is being held ransom as usual. Maybe this also reflects the failure of previous decentralizations of power and the local elections at the OrBorTor level – where line/layers of patronage always link back to manipulative Bangkok/urban Thai based elites? Perhaps until we have a strong laborers/farmers movement that translate into direct political representation, this will always be the case…
Ralph, religion was always there… Dhammakaya (pro-business) and Santi-Asoke (militant-prohibitionists)…
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