New Mandala

[Simon Creak, a PhD Candidate at The Australian National University, has examined the issues at stake in next month's SEA Games in Laos for Asia Times Online. Supposedly a massive achievement for the small country, the games have been scaled back and are dependent on enormous foreign funding. What to make of the paradox? Read [...]

[Read more →]

I have recently finished reading Volume 3 of a wonderful Thai studies trilogy.
Volume 1 Nation, was published in 1994. It is a forensic account of the construction of one of the core symbols of modern Thailand’s nationhood.
It was a long wait until Volume 2, King, emerged in 2006. But the wait was worth it. The author risked all [...]

[Read more →]

[Dr. Paul Chambers is currently the Senior Research Fellow at the Politics Institute, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.  His research interests are civil-military relations, democratization, and Southeast Asian politics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of East Asian Studies, Contemporary Southeast Asia, and the Asian Journal of Political Science, among others.]
The Thai armed forces have [...]

[Read more →]

Earlier in June, Bangkok Pundit caused quite a stir when he tantalisingly offered up the faintest sketch of a rumour and the intriguing idea that the clue was 15 June.
15 June?  15 June?  We scratched our collective heads at New Mandala HQ and failed to come up with anything that resembled a breakthrough.  Royal promotions, [...]

[Read more →]

When Paul Handley published The King Never Smiles one of the more common jabs at his work came from those who dismissed it as being based on “rumours”.  Handley countered by arguing that “[t]he palace lives on gossip and rumor, at least that which benefits it”.
If comments here and in this post by Bangkok Pundit [...]

[Read more →]

With Thailand’s political standoff rapidly approaching a point of no return, some are speculating that King Bhumibol Adulyadej may intervene to ease the tension. A royal intervention to resolve a seemingly intractable crisis could add much to the authority and mystique of the monarchy. One of the most powerful and enduring images of the king’s [...]

[Read more →]

The Nation has a quick summary of the latest edition of The King of Thailand in World Focus (a lively discussion related to the previous edition is available here).  I have yet to see this version but would be interested to hear the thoughts of those who have.  According to the summary:
…articles touch on the Crown Property Bureau, His Majesty’s [...]

[Read more →]

As something of an ongoing service to the New Mandala-reading audience I have selected another useful extract from Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej.  This one turns back the clock to a time when my parents were teenagers.  The Beatles were huge, or so I hear.  The Americans had yet to [...]

[Read more →]

Today I went back, once again, to Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej.  In the cut and thrust of the moment it can be easy to forget what has happened in decades past.  I would certainly encourage any New Mandala readers with a copy of Handley’s account near to hand to turn [...]

[Read more →]

Flicking through Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej earlier today, this retro-extract jumped out at me.  I hope New Mandala readers find it as interesting as I did.  The extract in question comes from page 370 and describes an episode from 1995.
The [Banharn Silpa-archa] government proved as bad as anyone [...]

[Read more →]