Taking on those who support the disenfranchisement of Thailand’s rural masses this is a tough-minded intervention from a well-regarded commentator.  It is, I might add, the same basic case that New Mandala co-founder Andrew Walker has been making around what he calls the “rural constitution”. 

Chang Noi skewers the key myth with characteristic aplomb:

In truth, the problem is not that upcountry voters don’t know how to use their vote, and that the result is distorted by patronage and vote-buying. The problem is that they have learnt to use the vote only too well.

Go Chang Noi!

Two recent articles by American anthropologist Katharine Bowie, provide some further  insight into the informal provisions of this “rural constitution” in northern Thailand. Both articles focus on a sub-district head (kamnan) election held in Chiang Mai province in 1996. Bowie is not one to romanticise local political life. This is a warts-and-all discussion of money politics, local political rivalry, intrigue, betrayal and recrimination. But running through both papers is the powerful message that electoral politics needs to be understood in terms of its embeddedness in local social relationships. One paper focuses on the ways in which matrilocal principles give women an often over-looked role in mobilising electoral support and brokering political relationships (bowie-2008a). The other examines how intensified political conflict in local government elections is, in part, a product of the intersection between modern laws aimed at decentralisation of power and older laws that had much more centralising objectives bowie-2008b.

Bowie’s conclusions in relation to vote-buying are worth quoting at some length:

Prevailing explanations of village vote buying range from a portrayal of villagers as embedded in a simple, rational capitalist calculation of selling their votes to the highest bidder to a portrayal of villagers as mired in a traditional moral economy of exchanging votes for gifts and hopes of protection. However, my anthropological case study of a village election suggests that these explanations suffer from five major flaws. First, these portrayals are ahistorical, failing to recognize that vote buying has not typified village electoral politics but rather has emerged in particular historical contexts. Second, these descriptions do not recognize the very different dynamics that characterize electoral politics at the village, tambon, provincial, and national levels; the more local the election, the more vote buying threatens village preferences for unanimity and anonymity. Third, such portrayals fail to recognize the dynamism of village politics, ignoring the complex and ever-shifting calculus by which village support for various candidates changes. Fourth, by failing to include a historical perspective, the explanations have minimized the importance in variations in patterns of vote buying; offering free pencils and free legal advice is different from bribing government officials, making private payments to individual villagers, or negotiating with a village community regarding proposed development projects. Finally, these characterizations fail to recognize how lacunae and ambiguities in the overall development of the national legal and administrative framework have complicated villagers efforts to protect democratic practices.

There will, of course, be some electoral prudes who point their moralising finger at any evidence that cash has a role to play in politics. Prudes are always fixated with the naughty bits. But cash payments before elections don’t necessarily signal the absence of electoral values. As I have argued in detail in my paper on the “rural constitution,” and as Bowie’s papers also demonstrate, distribution of cash prior to elections are assessed locally in terms of a range of interlinked political values that address issues of personal status, capability and morality.

Cash payments call political values into play. It is those who rely on the stereotype of votes readily exchanged for money who lack an appreciation of the importance of political values.

A footnote – as an afterthought, I have to say that I find quite objectionable some recent views such as a recent article by Yoshinori Nishizaki in Asian Studies Review (’Constructing Moral Authority in Rural Thailand : Banharn Silpa-acha’s Non-Violent War on Drugs’, Sept. 2007) which compares rural views of corrupt politicians in Thailand to the way Marcos or the Burmese leaders may be perceived as ‘rural heroes’ by farmers in villages. Despite the corruption scandals known to surround the figure of Banharn, he stresses that he is seen as a benevolent pho muang by some. In a view which purports to be postmodern but which may actually be more ethnomethodological, the argument is that there is no ‘essentially’ depraved or benevolent Banharn; it is all spin (my gloss) – what matters is how moral authority is constructed at the village and provincial levels, through the kind of village ceremonies and meetings with schoolchildren the article well describes. Villagers are ‘agnostic’ about Banharn’s corruption, the article argues, because they do not see it, but they treat him as a ‘virtuous leader’ because this is what they do see.

Criticising ‘false consciousness’ arguments, and the condescension of arguments that villagers need educating in what democracy really means, and specifically disagreeing with Turton’s 1984 ‘limits of ideological domination’ argument (this seems to imply that he believes there are no limits to ideological domination, ‘ideology’ is in effect all we have), it seems to me this kind of approach begs important questions of truth and levels of analysis which are barely touched by such descriptive accounts. (This follows the context of other works by Aghiros and collections by Ruth McVey and Kevin Hewison).

A forthcoming article by Andrew Walker (’The Rural Constitution and the Everyday Politics of Elections in Northern Thailand’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, February 2008), puts this in a much broader perspective. This is similarly a critique of the ‘negative portrayal of rural electoral culture’, the view (by both political commentators and the recent coup leaders) that support for Thaksin provided ‘clear evidence of voter irrationality’, the view that the ‘Thai populace lacks the basic  characteristics essential for a modern democratic society’ – which Walker, as in other articles, also associates partly with the communitarian valorisation of rural culture as against its commercialisation and the injection of large amounts of (as he sees it, necessary) cash – against the view of ‘gormless’ rural voters and a ‘failed democratic electorate’. Here the argument, following Kerkvliet, is for a broader understanding of local politics as involving debate and cooperations between groups and individuals over local resource allocation and the values which underpin it and, following Nidhi on the ‘cultural constitution’ in Thailand, that these local values embody a ‘rural constitution’ which shapes the processes of local elections and political behaviour.

Relations with the state are mediated through culturally embedded actors, argues Walker, and the skilful ethnography in this piece shows us how local voters do appear to particularly value leaders who are local, and will therefore understand local priorities, how they expect various forms of assistance besides monetary assistance from their representatives, and anticipate a certain amount of personal aggrandizement but not too much – and in the case of Thaksin took considerable pride in the economic achievements of the country and in his good English, seen as a sign of the educational status also much valued in the local perspective. Thaksin was also admired, says Walker, for his campaigns such as the war on drugs, which received considerable local support and commendation.

Again, the methodology owes much to Andrew Turton’s longstanding arguments for precisely this sort of analysis of local situations, yet the conclusions seem to me to merely reflect local ideological misapprehensions in a sadly mimetic way, with no attempt, in true postmodern style, to ask where truth may actually lie, or perhaps more pertinently, to probe alternatives to the dominant perspective, alternatives which may be barely discernible and certainly not overt. Besides local institutions of the state, the call in 1984 (Turton & Tanabe) was to look particularly at ‘non-institutional, informal, extrajudicial, sometimes illegal and subterranean, social forces, processes, and milieux’. There is no attempt here, for example, to deal with the power of fear and intimidation, to come to terms with the surveillance capacities of the modern state, or its powers to terrorize and the capacities of violence which the war on drugs unleashed at the local level throughout rural Thailand. That was an instructive case, for it was not just a matter of concerned village elders and a feckless minority of youth, criminals, ethnic minorities or other scapegoats, but a matter of very real conflicts and disputes, hatreds and enmities, between different individuals and indeed different categories of individual at the local level who resorted happily to the violence which had suddenly been legitimated, and therefore unleashed, in order to settle long-standing scores which run beneath the surface of village life. The appalling excesses of this time have been well documented, with cases of planting of drugs on victims after their deaths, the killing of children, and how local police fulfilled their quotas. In many areas there was open licence to shoot and kill those who stood in the way of particular alliances between local officials, police and drug dealers. In Khek Noi, a large Hmong settlement, extra-judicial killings had become almost the norm and an atmosphere of utter terror reigned.

In such literature there seems to be a worrying unconcern with ’selective traditions’ (Williams 1977, 1980, in 1984), exclusions from discourse, ‘restrictive’ practices such as scapegoating and ‘excommunication’ (Therborn 1980, in 1984), the complexities of actual consciousness at any one time as a ‘multiply determined configuration of elements’ (1984), the relations between domination, persuasion, and consent, and the more structural aspects of power, indeed with what Reynolds in a literary context importantly called ’state poetics’ in TCK (the rules about what can be said), which has become too diffuse to be grasped at all. Perhaps what is missing is class analysis. Perhaps that has just become too difficult, and too complex, for a largely interpretive anthropology.

There are many useful points here and now is not the time to respond to all of them. But I would like to make three brief comments.

 First, in relation to truth. (By the way, having long been regarded as a crude materialist I am delighted to be associated with post-modernism!) The truth I was seeking to explore in the paper related to what motivated people to vote in one way or another. Here, surely, a focus on peoples own political views is legitimate. To explore the truth about the Thaksin government (was it corrupt?, what was its socio-economic impact?, how did the war on drugs unfold? etc.) would be an interesting exercise but it is not what I was attempting when I wrote about the rural constitution.

Second, I certainly was interested in providing insight into “alternatives to the dominant perspective.” The basic motivation for the paper was to challenge the dominant perspective in Thailand (and among many academics) that rural electors are incapable of rational political judgement. And in my discussion of local political values I went to considerable lengths to argue that support for Thaksin was by no means total, unchallenged or “rock solid” – indeed that was one of the main themes of the paper.

Third, in relation to violence. My view is that issues of “fear and intimidation,” “surveillance,” “terror” and “violence” need to be ethnographically explored rather than assumed as a necessary aspect of people’s relation with the state. An atmosphere of “utter terror” may well have reigned in the village of Khek Noi but based on my ethnographic observations it did not in Baan Tiam, the village I wrote about. Indeed, far from creating an atmosphere of terror, the war on drugs was often spoken of in terms of enhancing personal and family security by greatly reducing the local distribution and consumption of amphetamines.

The last time the Journal of Contemporary Asia produced a special issue on Thailand was in 1978, it was a response to the bloody events of 6 October 1976 that marked the end to an important 3-year democratic interlude. The focus of that issue was on the destruction of democratic politics and the remarkable divisions that had emerged in Thai society, especially the divisions between the haves and the have-nots.

In hindsight, many now view the events of 1973-76 as a prelude to democratisation over the following three decades as a period of military-led political tutelage under General Prem Tinsulanond’s semi-democracy – we might call it “Thai-style democracy” – eventually gave way to parliamentary politics, at least until the coups of 1991 and then in 2006.

That a second Journal of Contemporary Asia on Thailand should be produced following the 2006 coup is a sad reflection on the troubled course of democracy in the country. Thaksin Shinawatra, the only Thai prime minister to win two successive general elections, projected himself as the political saviour of the domestic capitalist class following the 1997 economic meltdown, and became the self-declared saviour of the poor and dispossessed.

Thaksin led a political party that fundamentally changed the nature of Thailand’s politics. It also generated remarkable division.

Since the coup, these divisions have become deeper as the palace, the military and the bureaucracy have embedded their power and asserted their political and social dominance.

Tonight I do not want to detail all aspects of the special issue – that would be too time-consuming as the collection of papers deal with a number of aspects of the events leading up to the 2006 coup and the interpretation of the coup itself. And, we have some of the authors here tonight who can say a little more about their individual chapters and answer questions.

Let me begin by saying that this collection does not accept that the September 2006 coup was a “good coup.” In taking this position, among the various themes that can be seen in the collection, I think there are three that I should briefly mention.

The first relates to the conception of democracy in Thailand. So-called Thai-style democracy is a conservative definition of hybrid regime that allows an elite to maintain control over the political agenda against the demands of the disadvantaged masses. It does this by ensuring that political parties are weak and that political control is maintained through unelected positions. This conception has been developed and articulated since 1932, but has been embedded since 1957. Thus, in Thailand’s chequered history of democratisation the 2006 coup is yet another episode in the conservative elite’s attempt to control the political agenda.

A second and related theme is that the conservative control of the political agenda does not go unchallenged. Indeed, it is the disadvantaged (and sometimes disenfranchised) masses who pose the greatest challenge.

Whereas Thaksin supporters have often been painted as ignorant vote-sellers, studies in the north and northeast, show that rural electors have a preference for local candidates who support and deliver services to their constituency, and show strong leadership. Local politics is complex, and voters find themselves linked in many ways with local figures on all sides of political contests. Their preferences become a “road map” through the multiple demands of an election campaign. In this context, Thaksin’s populism was a response to the demands and insecurities of the poor and dispossessed. The problem was that this response was challenging to other constituencies and especially to the conservatives.

A failure to recognise the legitimacy of rural electoral decision-making and the demands of the dispossessed remain fundamental challenges for Thailand’s democracy.

Finally, the monarchy is placed at the centre of political events. The problem is that this also means that the monarchy – always said to be “above politics” except in times of crisis – is now situated at the heart of ongoing political struggles. Everything royal has substantially more political weight and political meaning than before the coup. Nationalist discourses place the monarchy at their core. Symbols of the monarchy are symbols of loyalty. The coup and its subsequent events – the constitution drafting and the upcoming election – may have been initially considered by conservative royalists as a political triumph. However, the coup may also be read as a failure of a “royal liberalism” – led by, for example, Anand Panyarachun and Prawase Wasi – associated with the 1997 Constitution.

Let me also quickly say what the collection doesn’t do. It doesn’t provide a detailed critique of the Thaksin period of government, its authoritarianism, its failed policies in the south, its cronyism and its human rights violations. Most of the authors in the collection have engaged in that criticism elsewhere. Pasuk and Baker have produced an important book on the Thaksin period and Ukrist is a co-author (with Duncan McCargo) of another significant study on The Thaksinization of Thailand. Other authors, myself included, have written numerous critical papers about the Thai Rak Thai government.

Finally, the collection does not specifically address the issue of whether the return to a ‘‘Thai-style democracy” will be successful. However, I think the thrust of the papers is clear: the emergent political system is unlikely to be inclusive; it will be dominated by a conservative palace, the royalist-military and the dead weight of the bureaucracy. Frankly, political demobilization and increasing the volume of highly conservative and nationalist discourses, promoting national forms of capitalism, and state-led campaigns teaching people the “proper” exercise of citizenship appear to be a recipe for political control rather than for reconciliation and democratisation.

Banharn (b.1932) has been a Member of Parliament (MP) from the agrarian province of Suphanburi, situated about one hundred kilometres north of Bangkok, since 1976. Since 1994, he has been the leader of the Chart Thai (CT) Party, one of the oldest parties in Thailand. In 1995–96 he even served as prime minister. In his seemingly illustrious political career, however, he has been implicated in numerous corruption scandals. His (and other politicians’) misuse of office was allegedly so egregious that the military used it as a pretext for ousting the civilian government in 1991. His short-lived administration and its bungling of financial policies are also believed to have contributed to the economic crisis of 1997. Most scholars and journalists therefore depict him as one of the debased provincial strongmen whose rise to power in post-1973 Thailand has hampered sound democratic governance. He is typically labelled an “old-style politician” who stays in power by resorting to vote-buying, patronage, or pork barrelling. …

Why do Suphanburians view someone who is seen as a nefarious villain by Bangkokians as their morally correct leader? How has Banharn constructed his authority in Suphanburi? This paper explores one answer. I argue that Banharn’s moral authority derives, in good part, from his non-violent campaign against illegal drugs, especially highly addictive methamphetamine pills or yaa baa.

The paper provides a very detailed account of Banharn’s “Good Youth of Suphan” project through which Banharn pursued a “non-violent war on drugs.” This sort of nuanced account of local political attitudes and activities is, with a few notable exceptions, sorely lacking in much academic and popular commentary on rural political behaviour. Here are Nishizaki’s closing comments:

[Middle class commentators] tend to ascribe rural voters’ thoughts and behaviour to their lack of education. Several Bangkok-based scholars of Thai politics have advanced an argument that reflects and has shaped such perceptions. These scholars then propose a quite banal solution to the “problem”: educate rural voters on the meaning of “democracy”. As one well-known scholar argues, “political education [must] be given to rural voters . . . to provide them with a proper understanding of the objects of elections and their mechanisms, as well as to arouse political awareness” (Suchit, 1996, p. 200). Scholars who embrace this kind of view, however, are doing enormous symbolic violence to rural voters’ worldview. They are in effect waging a morally condescending, dogmatic offensive without realising it. Scholars’ “objective” assessments, no matter how objective they may claim to be, constitute nothing less than ideology in a broadly construed sense (Foucault, 1973; Mannheim, 1991). In light of this, scholars who use the power of their pens (or computers) to dismiss rural voters’ thoughts and behaviour as reflecting their low educational levels are unknowingly implicated in constructing and perpetuating a vast ideological edifice that serves to reproduce their superior social positions – an edifice manifested in the value-ridden binary opposition between politically sophisticated Bangkok and the unsophisticated countryside. If rural voters are “stupid” enough to think of an allegedly depraved politician like Banharn as a good leader, they are no less “stupid” than welleducated Americans who regard President Bush as a great leader who is building a strong America and a free democratic world.

Contrary to stereotypes, the poor follow a mode of rationality in their participation in the electoral process. This study belies the simplistic notion of the “dumb masa,” which entered into wide currency following the dramatized resistance against the ouster of Joseph Estrada from the presidency … But idealising and romanticising the poor … is far from the object of this study. If anything, the study’s findings on people’s notions of leadership and elections are complex and multifaceted. Their views are not homogenous and, strictly speaking, there is no “poor vote.” Not only is there no singularity buy many of the views of the study participants also resonate with those of members of middle and upper classes. Philippine political culture is indeed richly textured and cuts across social classes, ethnicities, and geographic boundaries.

Seven Threats to Thailand’s Democracy
Andrew Walker
Thailand Update Conference
31 August 2007
University House
The Australian National University

Today I will be talking to you about what I see as seven key threats to Thailand’s democracy. Don’t ask me why I chose seven, it just seemed a good number when I nominated the topic and it gave me room to explore some of the complexity of the current situation. And, in fact, I’ve decided to talk about 6 threats and one opportunity.

My aim in doing this is not to provide a detailed analysis of the recent politics of military rule in Thailand. There are others far better qualified than I am to provide that sort of analysis. Instead I will take a more cultural direction – I am an anthropologist after all – and explore some of the more general attitudes, beliefs and social processes that I think pose key threats to the future development of Thai democracy. I should say that I appreciate that some of you may find some of my comments provocative. Some Thai commentators have expressed outrage at Western media and academic commentary on Thaksin, the coup, the monarchy and the recent referendum. In one recent case here at the ANU these complaints took the form of a rhetorical nationalist rejection of what was portrayed as neoliberal western bullying.

Well, if I fall into the camp of neoliberal bullies then so be it. But I do feel that this crude nationalist stance does little justice to the vigour and sophistication of debate that is going on within Thailand about its future political directions. This is a real debate that is carrying on despite significant restrictions on freedom of expression and the continued application of martial law in many parts of the country. The attempt to construct a dichotomy between Thai insiders and western outsiders is an attempt to paper over the very real political divisions that exist within Thailand.  [I then very briefly reviewed the key political milestones over the past year.]

Rejecting the ballot box

So, lets move on to the key threats. The first is the rejection of the legitimacy of the ballot box.

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. This was not the only rationale, but the denial of electoral legitimacy was fundamental in justifying the removal of a government that had been elected three times. And, with a further election scheduled for late 2006, those seeking to defend the coup relied heavily on the argument that the electorate was in no position to make a reasonable judgement about the Thaksin government’s well-publicised faults. Faced with the likelihood that Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party would win yet another election, the coup-makers argued that the army’s intervention was the only way to resolve the political standoff.

This rejection of the legitimacy of voter’s decision has taken some interesting twists during and after the referendum campaign. Remember, less than a year ago anti-Thaksin and pro-coup advocates were very keen to discredit the validity of the electoral process. Electoral politics was condemned and electors were slandered as uninformed, parochial and self-interested pawns of party canvassers. But in the lead up to the recent constitutional referendum electors were urged to return to the voting booths and to cast their votes in a process that, according to Prime Minister Surayud, would help secure Thailand’s democratic development.

So what changed? Why this new found enthusiasm for electoral politics. In fact, as we know in the referendum voters were given no meaningful choice. The referendum was a take-it-or-leave-it offer: if you want elections and a semblance of stability then vote yes. For those considering a no vote there was only the option of handing power to the military government to nominate a constitution of their choosing. Unlike the referendums that most of us are used to, in this case there was no clearly defined constitutional status quo that would be the outcome of a successful no vote. So, here we have some indication of the shape that sufficiency democracy is taking in Thailand. The advocates of sufficiency democracy, or guided democracy, are very happy to urge electoral participation when the electorate really has no choice. When voters do exercise choices, their electoral judgements are slandered as being the result of money politics.

Resort to the power of the gun

The second key threat is the ease with which resort is made to the power of the gun. One of the most unsavoury aspects of the Thaksin’s government’s term in office was the so called “war on drugs” which is said to have claimed the lives of thousands in a spate of extra-judicial killings. And one of the most unsavoury aspects of Thai political culture is that this brutal campaign (which turned a blind, and sometimes even approving, eye to official abuse and the violent settling of numerous local scores) proved to be a substantial electoral asset. Respect for people’s electoral wishes does amount to an endorsement of specific electoral motivations. People make electoral decisions for all sorts of reasons, some of them repugnant. That’s how a warts and all democratic system works. And it’s important to remember that support for the hardline action taken during the war on drugs extended to the highest levels of Thai society.

Of course, as we know it was resort to the gun of quite a different type (this time with a yellow ribbon tied around its barrel) that bought about Thaksin’s demise. Some commentators have argued that the coup was justified given Thaksin’s record of human rights abuse. Of course this is very much a retrospective justification. It is fanciful to suggest that the coup was motivated by Thaksin’s human rights abuses and that it represented some sort of turning point towards greater recognition of human rights.

My preference is to see a continuity between the extra-judicial gun culture that Thaksin endorsed and the extra-judicial, extra-constitutional and extra-electoral military intervention staged in September last year. In both cases the political assertion is made that force can resolve complex and seemingly intractable problems. Engendering respect for human rights and the rule of law is hardly served by using military force to tear up a constitution.

The constitution

So let’s consider this new constitution.

First let me make one empirical point. In the referendum held on the 19th August the constitution was endorsed. But not endorsed very strongly. 14.7 million out of 45 million voters voted yes. About 10 million voted no and about 20 million didn’t vote. But I don’t want to dwell on the referendum as I don’t think we yet have enough good quality data to make more than the most general speculation.

In relation to the provisions of the constitution there are clearly mixed opinions. On the one hand the constitution has been praised for its provisions in relation to human rights and the participation of civil society in the political process. On the other hand it is clear that one of the key aims of the constitution is to limit the power of elected representatives and to minimise the chance of single party dominance. But others are much better placed to talk about these specific provisions than I am.

The point I would like to put today is that, in a sense, the specific provisions of the constitution don’t matter. Rather than providing a general framework for government this constitution is a tool for achieving specific political objectives. What Thai voters were asked to endorse was a process whereby constitutions are only as good as the limit of military tolerance. In the wake of the September 2006 coup, the promise of a future election was undoubtedly attractive but it was also hollow, precisely because the reinvigorated threat of a coup strips legitimacy and moral force from the electoral process. The explicit request of the military government was that Thai voters endorse a constitution; but the implicit request was that they endorse the future abrogation of that very document if it delivers a government unpalatable to those who wield the power to overthrow it.

We can see the ideological groundwork for this being laid already with the usual tired claims about vote buying in relation to the substantial no vote in the northeast and the north. And this claims come from a government that spared little in terms of incentives and expenses for villagers mobilised as part of the yes vote campaign.

Sufficiency Economy

The fourth key threat may take some of you by surprise given its benign public face.

Let me introduce sufficiency economy by reading a short extract from a fairy story produced in Thailand. It is the story of a little kingdom and its good king, who triumphs over a series of dark forces. One of the king’s triumphs occurred during his many travels around the kingdom.

In a far off place, the king came across a village that had almost no one living there. “Where has everyone gone” the king asked the small group of remaining villagers. The villagers answered their king: “A demon of the dark called “GREED” came and visited and asked the people to leave the village. Most of the villagers abandoned the village and went to live in the “City of Extravagance”. The king thought for a moment and then gave the villagers a radiant seed. The villagers took the seed and planted it and it grew into the “radiant tree” that grew large branches and spread its radiance in all directions. The king told the villagers that the “radiant tree” is called “SUFFICIENCY.” The radiance of the tree shone to far off places, as far as the City of Extravagance. And many of those who saw it travelled back to return to their village.

This should give you some idea about the sufficiency economy philosophy. I don’t have time to go into it in detail today. Suffice to say that it is a theory proposed by the Thai king that places a strong emphasis on a “firm foundation in self reliance” as a basis for human development. The concept has been embraced with a passion by the current regime to help discredit Thaksin’s market driven model of economic development. Much of this adoption of sufficiency is rhetorical with local development projects funded by Thaksin quite literally re-badged as sufficiency economy or sufficiency agriculture projects. This is amusing and relatively trivial.

But there is a more fundamental issue. Sufficiency economy has become an ideological tool that seeks to moderate rising rural expectations for economic and political inclusion. Whatever sufficiency economy thinkers may have to say about urban consumers or businessmen, it is towards rising rural expectations for economic and political inclusion that the sufficiency economy urgings of moderation, reasonableness and immunity are most clearly directed. Not only are rural people to be shielded (or excluded) from full and active participation in the national economy but their full and active participation in electoral democracy is also delegitimised and the power of their elected representatives constrained. In this elite vision of electoral participation the problem lies in money politics – the demon of greed. The solution lies in the royally bestowed tree of local sufficiency.

Cultural Elitism

This issue leads us more fully into the cultural domain. Here, when I refer to cultural elitism I am using a rather crude term to describe a complex process. And in discussing this I want to get even more speculative.

One of the interesting characters to emerge from the puppet government established after the coup is the Culture Ministry’s Mrs Ladda Thungsupachai who is said to be the director of the Cultural Surveillence Centre. She’s not a big political player but she’s been involved in some interesting public discussions which, I think, are relevant to the current directions of Thai democracy. Let’s have a look at a couple of these.

The first relates to the so-called Coyote Girls. After Loi Kratong in 2006 the queen raised concerns after seeing television footage of a temple fair in Nong Khai at which Coyote dancers performed. The Culture Ministry stepped in and Ladda was quoted as saying that “Coyote Girls have to be in the right place, like an animal has to be in the zoo.” Eventually a ban was put in place on such performances in the proximity of temples and the Education Ministry was encouraged to provide the girls with training for alternative livelihoods.

Mrs Ladda reappeared in the press in May this year when she condemmed Thailand’s Miss Universe contestant, Fahroong Yutitam, for appearing at the competition in Mexico in a costume that clearly had strong ethnic minority elements. Ladda condemned her for not appearing in Thai national dress. Thai National dress, Ladda said, must be Thai. “It also must be in line with the official, royal designs and it must be used for proper occasions. Miss Fahroong has failed in her duty as Miss Thailand. She should show the outside world an authentic national Thai dress. Wearing an ethnic dress but calling it Thai could confuse young Thai minds and set a bad example for the youngsters to emulate.”

Of course, these are relatively trivial incidents. But as with the re-badgeing we saw in relation to sufficiency economy there is something rather more important going on. Of course there is nothing new or particularly Thai about this sort cultural elitism. But I would suggest that in the current political context it both draws some strength from, and helps to reinforce the view, that the “masses” are not completely legitimate participants in shaping the country’s future. As with sufficiency economy we have the notion that large segments of the population, and especially the rural population, have become detached from appropriate cultural values. And once again the solution is expressed in terms of the need to return to relatively narrowly, and sometimes royally, defined sense of morality.

But I also think there is something more specific going on. And here I admit to being quite speculative. One of the anxieties produced by the Thaksin government is that he had derived influence from cultural forces that lay outside the domain of the centre. Of course, part of this anxiety lies in his clear electoral power in the north and northeast. But it’s not just about electoral power. There was also concern, I think, that Thaksin tapped into and perhaps even created or energised aspirations and forms of social and cultural expression that were seen as in some way inappropriate. One example of this is the regular condemnation of Thaksin’s village fund as enabling farmers to purchase motor bikes and mobile phones. A more extreme expression of this elite anxiety and outrage were the common references to Thaksin’s dealings with hazardous spiritual forces which were often defined in explicitly non-Thai terms – the Burmese astrologer and the khmer voodoo. Efforts since the coup to define appropriate forms of cultural expression – including the semi-obligatory wearing of yellow shirts on certain occasions – can be party seen as an attempt to re-establish the royal centre as the primary source of cultural inspiration.

Silence

Which leads us back to the key silence that lies at the heart of Thai political debate. This is, of course, the legally enforced silence about the monarchy.

As we all know open discussion, let alone criticism, of the role of the king in Thai political matters is exceptionally difficult. One illustration of this is the fact that Paul Handley’s scholarly biography of the king is banned in Thailand, though scans of the book circulate widely on the internet. In the absence of open public discussion there is, of course, a proliferation of rumour, gossip and even the occasional video. There is also some vigorous debate about the role of the monarchy on some Thai web boards. This may represent some opening up of discussion but there is a lack of serious and concerted public discussion about the role of the monarch in the Thai political system.

It is not necessary to take a strong anti-royalist position to recognise that the king’s contribution to political events, to rural development and to human rights has been uneven. This uneven record is natural and normal for any leader. But this natural and normal situation is silenced.

This silence has an important implication for the development of Thai democracy. What it allows is the persistence of a largely uncontested image of virtuous and disinterested leadership. This becomes an ideologically potent standard of leadership against which elected politicians are assessed. And it is an ideologically convenient standard that can be readily drawn upon by those seeking to overthrow elected governments. The ideological potency of this unrealistic image of leadership would be diluted via more open public debate and discussion.

An opportunity

I thought it would be good to end on a positive note. So I would like to discuss what I see as one of the key, and often unrecognised, opportunities for the development of Thai democracy.

In a recent paper I have written about what I call a “rural constitution”. The rural constitution is made up of the various values that inform peoples’ electoral decisions about political leaders. Based on my research in the north of Thailand these values relate to things like effective and accessible local representation, support for economic development, sound administration, strong leadership and an appropriate balance between private and public interests.

I am certainly not trying to romanticise rural political culture – as in any political system there is plenty that is ugly and unpleasant about it. But what I am suggesting is that there is a rich store of sound democratic sense within the Thai electorate. The notion that Thaksin’s electoral support was rock solid and readily mobilised through patronage networks is highly misleading. The 2006 election was sabotaged by the Democrat Party, who were too scared to contest it, but the result did show that the Thai Rak Thai vote was soft, even in its electoral heartland. It is very likely that Thaksin would have won the election scheduled for late 2006 but in all likelihood his parliamentary dominance would have been diminished.

We are often told that the democratic checks and balances failed during the Thaksin era and that the military had to intervene to put things right. But I’m not convinced. The fundamental check and balance of electoral judgement was in place. Thaksin’s faults were well known and they were having an electoral impact. Just because a party is elected two, three or even four times in a row does not mean that this judgement has failed. The rural constitution is alive and well.

Political elites in Thailand often like to pontificate about the need for democratic education. After the coup General Sonthi declared:

Many Thais still lack a proper understanding of democracy. The people have to understand their rights and their duties. Some have yet to learn about discipline. I think it is important to educate the people about true democratic rule.

But perhaps the most pressing need for political education is at this elite level. Some concerted exposure to the rural constitution may be a good place to start.

New Mandala has, as regular readers will know, been particularly critical of efforts – both before and after the 19 Sepetmber coup - to portray Thailand’s rural voters as politically unsophisticated.  It was, therefore, with much interest that I read today’s The Nation.  It carries an editorial, headlined “Charter pressure on rural people“, that describes the upcoming referendum to decide whether Thailand accepts the junta’s draft constitution. 

The editorial asks, “Has there been enough of a learning curve to prepare Thailand’s rural masses for this?”  According to The Nation, “Adding ideological questions…could be too much for the majority to take”. 

The Nation also asserts that:   

One thing is certain: the referendum will be a political war. And this war is not about winning the hearts of the rural people; it’s about how to control, mobilise or manipulate them. The military regime has sent propaganda teams to the villages to convince the people that the draft should be accepted unconditionally. Its opponents will also be mobilising all of their resources to convince the same people that the draft should be rejected regardless of its contents. The rural masses will be trapped in the middle of a power game in which they had no interest.

They will be learning about democracy the hard way, and we can only hope the opposing sides do not confuse them to death.

Theatrical flourishes aside, what do New Mandala readers think?  

Will this referendum so baffle rural Thais that they can’t grasp the key issues?  Is it really true that the “the rural masses will be trapped in the middle of a power game in which they had no interest”?  Since the 1997 constitution was promulgated haven’t rural Thais already learned a great deal about democracy?   If they haven’t already – how is it that a royalist, military junta will be in any position to teach them?

Rural voters not politically naive, says Aussie anthropologist
Published on May 25, 2007

The stereotype view of Thai rural electorates as being ignorant and incapable of making informed political decision during elections is wrong and a better understanding of their complex set of values would be beneficial to the development of Thai democracy, Andrew Walker, an anthropologist at Australian National University (ANU) said.  Walker, who spent the past four years doing fieldwork at a small farming village called Baan Tiam in Chiang Mai province, said villagers make voting decisions according to their set of values, which he called a “rural constitution”.  The values were made up of numerous informal provisions that mainly include a common preference for local candidates, an expectation that candidates will support their electorate, and an emerging emphasis on strong and transparent administration.

“Certainly there’s an element of patronage, but I think like everything else, life is complex,” said Walker, at his fieldwork presentation at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science last week. “To put it very simply, the fact that people have multiple patrons and are cross-cut by marriages, trading relationships and so on, make the idea that rural people can be divided into a series of pyramids is just ridiculous.”

Walker said both the mass media and academics often perpetuate the stereotype. The answer to democracy in Thailand, Walker warned, did not lie in turning rural villagers into middle class citizens. He noted that rural people respond very pragmatically and understand where the power lies and recognise they have limited ability to alter the discourse. “Don’t be afraid. Rural people do have political values. They may be different but they’re still legitimate values,” he said, adding that Thai democracy was now in “danger” with the “drafting of a rather disgusting alternative constitution”.

The anthropologist, who made the observations during his stay at the 100-household Baan Tiam, admitted that it was dangerous to romanticise rural culture.  “Often, people voted for reasons that are dishonourable, but we have to accept that it’s their right.” He saw the refusal to accept that right by the anti-Thaksin Shinawatra protesters – who later supported the September 19 coup – as a threat to the future of democracy.  “Coup supporters and constitutional alchemists have sought to de-legitimise Thaksin’s electoral support by alleging it was based on the financially fuelled mobilisation of an easily led and ill-informed rural mass. This erasure of everyday political values contained in the rural constitution represents a much more fundamental threat to Thailand’s democracy than the tearing up of the 1997 charter.”

Walker argued that rural electors are careful and rational, but did not deny the problem of vote-buying and the role of party canvassers. He pointed out that even the Thai Rak Thai Party received hugely varying votes from Chiang Mai people, with the party winning 44 per cent of the votes in the first election, 66 per cent in the second general election and 33 per cent in the last snap election.  Walker said rural voters evaluated Thaksin and his party through their rural constitution. “The level of his vote changed a great deal. So people just didn’t go out and vote for Thai Rak Thai. They made an informed political decision.”

The ANU anthropologist said a number of local people had expressed dismay at Thaksin, which went against the simple stereotyped view of a patronage culture and vote buying.  “Thaksin cheated too much – he’s greedy and was surrounded far too much with bad people,” one informant told Walker.  “He has lots of money but we never saw him make a donation,” Walker quoted another villager.

On the plus side, Walker said local villagers valued the fact that Thaksin hailed from the North, could speak English, was rich, led a high-profile campaign against drugs, and helped end the IMF “bondage”.  “Thailand is famous now, everyone has heard of Thaksin,” a villager told him during the pre-coup time when Thaksin seemed invincible. “You don’t want to assume that farmers have a single-minded view of the TRT party,” Walker conclud-ed. “I’m not suggesting they are political computers but that there are local values informing their decision making process.”

Pravit Rojanaphruk