New Mandala

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Earlier 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 seminar). The reception was friendly. It was good to see Ji Ungpakorn  there and I appreciated his comments about the complexity of political patronage in rural areas. Supporters [...]

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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 [...]

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In previous posts I have discussed two of the key elements in what I am calling the “rural constitution” – a preference for locally embedded candidates and an expectation that political representatives will financially support their electorate. In the following extracts I consider a third key local political value – an emphasis on strong and transparent administration.�
This [...]

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In my previous post I discussed the importance of localism in relation to what I call the “rural constitution.” I want to emphasise a key statement from that post as the point seems to have got a bit lost in some of the discussion:
In brief, localism provides one flexible framework for political decision making, but [...]

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This is the second post in which I provide extracts of my recently drafted paper on local electoral culture in northern Thailand. The paper is based on ethnographic research in the village of Baan Tiam (if you are looking for statistical analysis of voting behavior you will have to look elsewhere!). In the previous post [...]

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Over the past few months I have been working on a paper about local electoral culture in northern Thailand. The paper is based on fieldwork I have undertaken in the village of Baan Tiam. The basic aim of the paper is to challenge the negative portrayals of rural electoral behavior that have been used to [...]

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