Politics in Thailand

This paper offers an examination of crypto-colonial discourse in Modern Thai Architecture from the 1960s to the 1980s. It argues that the transplantation of western Modern architecture in Thailand initiated a neo-colonial cultural dynamic as the architects’ creations were subtly subjected to an American Cold War agenda, established in the Southeast Asia region since the 1950s. According to the recent scholarship of Thai postcolonial studies, the term Crypto-colonialism is applied to Thailand based on its unique form of political marginality. This theory characterizes Thailand’s relation to the West as being a technically independent
though essentially tributary nation-state, because the country was materially dependent on western economic and political power (Herzfeld 2002, 900-901). This research thus looks at the “subordination” characteristics of Modern Thai architecture from the 1960s to the 1980s, when western powers, especially the United States, imposed their culture upon that of Thailand to undermine or to deny its existence. Its analysis shows that, during these Cold War years, urban infrastructure and the hospitality industry in Bangkok and its suburbs grew rapidly due to American economic aid as well as to the need to provide accommodations for western tourists and the American military presence. The architectural design of this period was dominated by spatial concerns that reflected the new and powerful influence of the United States over the traditional Thai architectural planning. By tracing the historical consolidation of Modern architectural consumerism in Thailand and the works of American architects who were working in Thailand during the 1960s and the 1980s, this research will challenge the idea that colonial discourses were only confined to countries or regions that were directly occupied by western nations.

Traditionally marginalised groups now have more access to new and unconventional means to participate in politics, transforming the media ecologies of existing political environments. Contemporary feminist scholarship has centered on how women use new media technologies to serve political agendas. However, this literature focuses predominantly on women in the West, while women in developing countries, or Asia more generally, have been largely excluded from analysis. This article aims to fill this gap by examining Thai women's online activities during the 2013/2014 Bangkok political protests.

This briefing covers the exotic life of Jim Thompson, OSS officer and CIA asset, his disappearance in 1967 in the high jungle of Malaysia, the search for him (likely the largest land search in SE Asian history), and theories and numerous rumors about the disappearance.  The briefing then contributes a new, never before done analysis of the 1967 search, evaluating it using modern principles promulgated by the US National Association for Search and Rescue.  This analysis shows that the original search likely only covered between 2 and 40 percent of the area that needed to be searched, that specific search tactics were inadequate and inappropriate, that Thompson was a very unusual search subject, and that the probability is that his body still remains in the jungle.  The briefing also covers the murder of Jim's elder sister in Pennsylvania several months after his disappearance, and concludes that the two mysteries are likely not connected.

The objective of this article is to explore the role of parliament in police governance in selected countries in Asia and Europe, including Belgium, Germany, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Thailand and the United Kingdom. Based on a comparative framework of analysis, the country case studies demonstrate that parliaments apply their generic functions to the police, including the legislative, budget control and oversight function. Furthermore, parliaments in all case studies have a dedicated committee or subcommittee dealing with police affairs, endowed with subpoena and contempt powers to compel government and police officers to appear before committee meetings and to submit required documents. In addition, for police to be fully accountable, parliaments have legislated and set up independent oversight bodies, including independent police complaints bodies, ombudspersons and national human rights institutions as well as anticorruption/financial audit bodies and dataprotection commissioners.

Abstract:This essay explores how a recent body of work by Thai artist Piyarat Piyapongwiwat uses an immersive video installation to create a context that affectively connects the viewer with a group of exploited Cambodian labourers. While the struggles of these labourers—whose livelihoods are being eroded as the mountain that has sustained them for generations is fenced off, privatized and mined to supply urban development with limestone—may seem remote and disconnected from the lives of privileged, urban exhibition-goers, Piyapongwiwat’s work belies this disconnection. The affective portal created by the video installation allows us to not only empathize with the labourers, but to see how their sense of their own agency and power to change their plight is negated by what seem to be inexorable autonomous processes of capitalist development beyond their control or influence. At the same time, she enables us to see how we (the privileged viewers) can conveniently ignore our own complicity in these exploitative conditions through that same ideological sleight of hand that allows us to abdicate our responsibility for these seemingly autonomous processes from which we indirectly benefit. This learned acquiescence to exploitation, and concomitant alienation from a sense of agency to challenge these processes, benefits State-sanctioned extractive capitalist exploitation and perpetuates the power to oppress. The essay explores how Piyapongwiwat interweaves fictive, poetic narrative with documentary footage of the limestone quarry labourers, offering critical distance to examine the workings of the ideologies that perpetuate this status quo. The juxtaposition of documentary and poetic, philosophical and political narratives in the artwork offers a fertile space in the imagination for resistance and reclamation of agency through a search for truth beyond the ideologies that serve State and capitalist power.

This essay explores intimate relationships between Buddhism and power in contemporary Thailand. Considering practices like divination and spirit mediumship as well as more orthodox contexts like kingship and the monkhood, it argues that Thai Buddhism cannot be divorced from the race for political influence and material wealth. The essay ultimately investigates the role of religion in legitimizing social hierarchy and economic inequality in the kingdom. It also illustrates how Thai Buddhism offers opportunities for resistance, as people from the periphery appropriate idioms of morality to challenge the status quo.

Nidhi Eoseewong Prefatory note to the English translation: During the crackdown on red shirt protestors during April-May 2010, at least 94 people were killed and over 2000 injured. In an unprecedented event in Thai political history, the leaders who presided over the crackdown --former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban (now a monk) -were indicted in October 2013 for premeditated murder under Articles 80, 83, 84 and 288 of the Criminal Code [1]. The indictment was unprecedented because this is the first time that state officials -either those at the level of command or those who carried out orders in the field -were indicted for their role in a massacre. The criminal case came amidst ongoing inquests [2] into the deaths, the majority of which concluded that soldiers were responsible for the deaths of civilians.

While the KPI Thai Politics Up-date No. 4 (February 6, 2008) dealt with the referen-dum processes in Chachoengsao province, this paper opens with an analysis of na-tional-level aspects of the referendum. It is found that it was neither free nor fair, mainly because this was not an exercise in direct democracy but rather part of the military coup-plotters’ attempt to eradicate Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party from the political landscape. Accordingly, the legal framework of the referendum was de-signed to benefit the drafters of the constitution, while the public space for voicing deviating opinions, especially by TRT politicians, was severly restricted. At the same time, coup-connected pro-constitution forces had ample space to push for the accep-tance of the draft.
The second part of the paper analyzes issues concerning the election of De-cember 23, 2007. First, changes introduced to the election system by the new constitu-tion are explained. This mainly concerns the return from single-member constituen-cies to the pre-1997 system of multi-member constituencies, but also the introduction of eight zones for proportional voting, and the return of vote counting from central counting stations in the constituencies to the polling stations. The second section deals with the Election Commission’s restrictions placed on electioneering as well as its role in excluding former TRT executives from the campaign of the People’s Power party. Finally, the election result is analyzed from a number of perspectives.

Populism and nationalism have been described as major threats to democracy. But ambiguities linger over their conceptual boundaries and overlaps. This article develops a typology of nationalist narratives to historically situate the recent global rise of populist nationalism. Specifically, we identify three common types of historical experience with empire that have shaped contemporary expressions of nationalism by populist leaders: imperial power, where a nation's forerunner was the leading polity in a regional or global empire; imperial subject, where a nation was ruled and dominated by an imperial power, and imperial holdout, where a nation battled off imperial encroachments with relative success. Collective memories of these divergent imperial experiences are associated with three distinct types of nationalist narratives today: restorative nationalism in former imperial powers, redemptive nationalism in former imperial subjects, and retentive nationalism in former imperial holdouts. We illustrate this typology in three major cases of twenty-first-century populism: Turkey under Erdogan, the Philippines under Duterte, and Thailand under Thaksin. We tentatively contend that restorative nationalism is an especially likely conduit for greater political disruptions at home and abroad.

Across regimes both dictatorial and democratic since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thai citizens have experienced a range of forms of extrajudicial violence at the hands of state officials, including torture, disappearance, assassination, and massacre. In nearly all cases, state officials have done so with impunity and escaped sanction and accountability. This impunity has been produced and sustained through the unwillingness of state officials to find their colleagues responsible, the intimidation of victims of violence and other citizens, and weak legal and other institutional structures. Impunity takes place in public and is pedagogical and meant to be witnessed, from the instance of state violence to the evasion of accountability and finally to the creation of evidence about impunity for it. Drawing on overlooked archival and other state documents, hundreds of newspaper articles, memoirs of civil servants and victims of state violence, and court observation to reveal previously-unexamined incidents, In Plain Sight: Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand offers a new history of modern Thailand written through the lens of impunity complete with a new chronology, new actors, and new unresolved questions. Between the lines of the lives and deaths of victims of state violence and the dissimulation and denials of state officials, unexpected and surprising insights about violence, law, and human rights emerge. By placing the production of impunity side-by-side with the different challenges to impunity made by victims and survivors of state violence, occasional dissident civil servants, and, particularly beginning in the 1970s, the international and domestic human rights movements, the new history of modern Thailand found in In Plain Sight is not one of seamless state domination, but also records and takes account of the continual and courageous challenges made to it.

For more information and to order, see https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5453.htm

This paper describes the movements, personalities and processes in Thailand’s Malay dominated provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat that have led to unprecedented diversity within the ummah. Like the rest of Thai/Malay peninsula, although the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Thailand’s far-south are conservative traditionalists, the size and influence reformist Islam continues to increase. This is particularly the case among urban Malays. While the roots of reformism were sown in the 19th century by luminaries such as Syeikh Daud al-Fatani (1769-1847), and Syeikh Ahmed al-Fatani (1856-1908), the most important reformist personality in the early 20th centuries was Haji Sulong (1895-1945). Since his return from Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, Dr Ismail Lutfi Japakiya, the founding of rector of Yala Islamic University (Thailand’s first Islamic university) has emerged as the leader of Saudi style salafism. I conclude by considering the impact of the Tablighi Jama’at, a South Asian revival movement, on Islamic diversity in South Thailand since its arrival in the 1980s. A important point infrequently made in analysis of the Tablighi Jama’at is that both reformists and traditionalists are involved in this important revivalist movement.

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หนังสือที่มีเนื้อหาเกี่ยวข้องกับสงครามเย็น (Cold War) มีอยู่จำนวนมาก แต่มักจะศึกษาและอธิบายในเชิงการเมืองและการทหารเป็นส่วนใหญ่ ทว่า “Thailand in The Cold War” กลับนำเสนอมุมมองของสงครามเย็น ในด้านที่แตกต่างออกไป โดยเน้นศึกษาไปในมิติทางสังคมและวัฒนธรรม ซึ่ง Matthew มองว่าเป็นรากฐานของความสัมพันธ์ที่แนบชิดระหว่างไทยและสหรัฐอเมริกาในยุคนั้น หนังสือเล่มนี้มุ่งหมายที่จะค้นหาคำตอบว่า อิทธิพลของอเมริกันมีผลต่อแนวคิดชาตินิยม / ความเป็นชาตินิยมไทยอย่างไร โดยตลอดทั้ง 6 บทของหนังสือ Matthew จะนำข้อมูลทางด้านวัฒนธรรม เช่น การแต่งกาย ค่านิยมในการบริโภค การท่องเที่ยว มาอภิปรายถึงวัฒนธรรมอเมริกันที่แฝงตัวอยู่ในบริบทสังคมไทย และในตอนท้ายเขาก็ได้สรุปว่า ความเป็นไทย (Thainess) เกิดจากอิทธิพลของทั้งไทยและสหรัฐอเมริกา

Since the end of the absolute monarchy in Thailand on June 24, 1932, the rulers and the ruled have been locked into struggle, often violent, over what form the polity and the people's participation in it should take. This essay examines this struggle, the imagination of justice, and the inability to consolidate democracy, or even a stable government, through the lens of the monarchy, which has remained beyond accountability. Violence committed to preserve the monarchy forecloses democracy and fosters a form of what can be called modern absolutist monarchy, when some lives are visibly placed beyond the law's protection from violence and others are made dispensable by being made subject to repressive enforcement of the law. The emergence in 2020 of a daring challenge to the position of the monarchy beyond the law refracts both the dangers it poses to democracy and the urgency of imagining a new Thai polity.

งานที่ท่านอ่านอยู่นี้มุ่งที่จะสำรวจทฤษฎี Network Monarchy ที่ถือกำเนิดขึ้นเพื่ออธิบายการทำงานของสถาบันพระมหากษัตริย์ แต่นอกจากการสำรวจความคิดแล้วยังได้ระบุถึงข้อพิจารณาและข้อวิจารณ์บางประการต่อแนวคิดนี้และงานที่ได้นำแนวคิดนี้ไปใช้ต่ออีกด้วย ทั้งนี้ก็เพื่อให้ทฤษฎีมีศักยภาพมากขึ้นในการอธิบายการเมืองไทย

บทความชิ้นนี้มีจุดมุ่งหมายเพื่อศึกษาประวัติศาสตร์ของทัณฑนิคมสมัยใหม่ในประเทศไทยนับตั้งแต่ปลายทศวรรษ 2470 ถึงทศวรรษ 2500 ผ่านแนวคิด การจัดตั้ง และพัฒนาการของงานทัณฑนิคมหลังการปฏิวัติสยาม พ.ศ. 2475 จากการศึกษาพบว่าการตั้งทัณฑนิคมเป็นผลมาจากความพยายามปฏิรูปราชทัณฑ์ในระบอบใหม่ภายใต้แนวคิดฝึกอบรมให้ผู้ต้องขังสามารถแก้ไขฟื้นฟูเป็นพลเมืองดี นำไปสู่การตั้งทัณฑนิคม ณ จังหวัดยะลาและจังหวัดนครราชสีมา ปฏิบัติการราชทัณฑ์ระบอบใหม่ในทัณฑนิคมให้ความสำคัญกับการดำเนินงานทางเศรษฐกิจและการดูแลสุขภาพอนามัยแก่นักโทษ อย่างไรก็ตามจากปัญหาการควบคุมนักโทษ การบริหารงานทัณฑนิคมที่ด้อยประสิทธิภาพ ประกอบกับวิกฤตสงครามโลกครั้งที่ 2 ทำให้กิจการทัณฑนิคมประสบความล้มเหลว อันนำไปสู่การยุบเลิกทัณฑนิคมหลังการรัฐประหาร พ.ศ. 2490

The paper aims to study the history of modern penal colonies in Thailand during the 1930s–1950s by exploring concept, establishment and development of penal colonies. The study found that modern penal colonies were the result of efforts to penal reform after the Siamese Revolution 1932 under the concept of inmates rehabilitation for good citizenship which led to the establishment of Penal Colonies in Yala and Nakhon Ratchasima Province. Penal practice in penal colonies focused
on economic productions and healthcare for prisoners. However, the problem of surveillance prisoners, inefficient institutional management and the crisis of the World War II led to the failure of the penal colonies until the government decided to dissolve the penal colonies after the Coup of 1947.

There were two, not one, amnesty laws passed in relation to the 6 October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University and coup in Thailand. The first amnesty law, passed on 24 December 1976, legalized the coup and prevented those who created the conditions for the coup and seized power on the evening of 6 October from being held to account. The second amnesty law, passed on 16 September 1978, freed eighteen student activists still undergoing criminal prosecution and dismissed the charges against them. Although neither amnesty mentioned the massacre, the urgency of producing and then safeguarding impunity for the state and para-state actors behind the violence at Thammasat was the absent presence in both laws. Combining a close reading of both laws with examination of archival documents about the drafting of the first amnesty law and court and other records related to the second, this article uncovers the hidden transcripts of both amnesty laws as a point of departure for examining questions about impunity, law, and history. First, what are the legal mechanics through which violent actors escape accountability? Second, what are the legal and political functions of amnesty when no crime has been committed? Third and finally, might accountability for past violence be possible, and if so, under what conditions? The answers to these questions illuminate how impunity was produced in the specific case of the 6 October 1976 massacre in Thailand as well as address broader concerns about impunity's role in state formation.

Libro que reúne artículos acerca de la historia, la economía y la política interna y externa del sistema internacional de Asia y el Pacífico, durante la Guerra Fría. En palabras de los editores, busca responder «a la necesidad de conocer y profundizar en el estudio de la región desde una mirada histórica centrada en las décadas en las que se forjaron buena parte de las identidades nacionales del Asia Pacífico». A través de una escritura limpia, aporta reflexiones sobre la temática que complementa, a la vez, con abundante documentación, bibliografía, índice onomástico y reseñas de los autores.

Since the 1960s, the hybrid popular music called luk thung has embodied the aspirations, frustrations, and sorrows of Thailand’s working class. Global scholarship, however, has been slow in pulling back the curtain on this seminal genre. In this pioneering book, ethnomusicologist James Mitchell traces the history of luk thung, lays out its musical influences and characteristics, and gives an inside view into the world of luk thung through ethnographic research with singers, songwriters, fans, and other professionals in the entertainment industry. Throughout this account, the author maintains a focus on the historically overlooked region of northeastern Thailand and its intricate connections with luk thung. This culminates in the groundbreaking final chapter, which refutes the widespread opinion that luk thung is an apolitical genre, not only through a close look at its high-profile role in the political turmoil of recent years but also by tracing currents of protest and sociopolitical commentary back to the music’s origins.

This book also includes links to many of these songs online so that readers can hear for themselves the sounds that came to express the triumphs and hardships of everyday working Thais.

(Full-paper) เมื่อทำการศึกษาความเป็นมาของการวางแผนพัฒนาและยุทธศาสตร์ชาติของประเทศไทยแล้ว จะสามารถแบ่งวิวัฒนาการของจัดทำวางแผนพัฒนาและยุทธศาสตร์ชาติของประเทศไทยได้ออกเป็นสี่ยุค ได้แก่ ยุคที่หนึ่ง คือ การจัดทำเค้าโครงการเศรษฐกิจ ที่ถือเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นในการวางแผนทิศทางการพัฒนาของประเทศ ยุคที่สอง คือ การจัดทำผังเศรษฐกิจของประเทศ
ถือเป็นการก่อตั้งคณะกรรมการวางแผนเศรษฐกิจชุดแรก พร้อมกับการเกิดบทบัญญัติในรัฐธรรมนูญในหมวด “แนวนโยบายแห่งรัฐ” ยุคที่สาม คือ การจัดทำแผนพัฒนาเศรษฐกิจ (และสังคม) แห่งชาติ เป็นยุคที่ประเทศไทยได้ยกร่างแผนพัฒนาได้สำเร็จ โดยยังดำเนินการวางแผนควบคู่กับแนวนโยบายพื้นฐานแห่งรัฐในรัฐธรรมนูญ และยุคที่สี่ คือ การจัดทำยุทธศาสตร์ชาติ ซึ่งถือเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของการใช้แผนระยะยาวและมีสภาพบังคับทางกฎหมายเป็นครั้งแรก
ทั้งนี้ เพื่อให้การดำเนินการตามยุทธศาสตร์ชาติประสบความสำเร็จผู้ที่เกี่ยวข้องจะต้องพิจารณาความไม่ชัดเจนของการดำเนินการในส่วนที่เกี่ยวข้องกับยุทธศาสตร์ชาติบางประการ ซึ่งได้แก่ สถานะและผลทางกฎหมายของ “แผนยุทธศาสตร์ชาติ” ที่มีสถานะเช่นเดียวกับแผนงาน
ตามกฎหมายอื่นๆ ที่หากองค์กรของรัฐฝ่ายบริหารต้องการให้แผนงานหรือประเด็นใดมีสภาพบังคับในทางกฎหมาย ก็จำเป็นที่จะต้องเสนอประเด็นนั้นๆ เป็นร่างกฎหมายไปให้ฝ่ายนิติบัญญัติพิจารณา โดยมีคณะกรรมการยุทธศาสตร์ชาติทำหน้าที่หลักในการให้คำปรึกษาแก่คณะรัฐมนตรี ฉะนั้นบุคคลที่มาเข้าร่วมเป็นองค์ประกอบในโครงสร้างของคณะกรรมการยุทธศาสตร์ชาติจึงต้องเป็นผู้เชี่ยวชาญที่คณะรัฐมนตรีในระบอบประชาธิปไตยให้การยอมรับ สามารถให้ข้อเสนอแนะตามหลักวิชาการเพื่อให้การดำเนินการตามแผนยุทธศาสตร์ชาติซึ่งใช้ต่อเนื่องเป็นระยะเวลา 20 ปี ประสบความสำเร็จ
ทางด้านเนื้อหาในการบัญญัติให้นโยบายของรัฐบาลสอดคล้องกับยุทธศาสตร์ชาติ รัฐบาลต้องมุ่งเน้นการดำเนินการไปตามกรอบที่รัฐธรรมนูญกำหนดซึ่งต้องสอดคล้องกับ
หลักเสรีประชาธิปไตยและนิติรัฐ โดยให้นำแนวนโยบายแห่งรัฐไปเป็นแนวทางในการตรากฎหมาย (ของฝ่ายนิติบัญญัติ) และนำมากำหนดเป็นนโยบายในการบริหารราชการแผ่นดิน (ของรัฐบาล)  ขณะที่ความรับผิดชอบในการบริหารราชการแผ่นดินของคณะรัฐมนตรียังคงต้องให้ความสำคัญ
ในการรับผิดชอบสูงสุดต่อสภาผู้แทนราษฎร
ทางประเด็นการติดตามตรวจสอบและประเมินผล การตีความความสอดคล้องหรือไม่สอดคล้องระหว่างการบริหารตามนโยบายรัฐบาลกับยุทธศาสตร์ชาติมีลักษณะที่มีความเป็นนามธรรมสูงมาก ความเหมาะสมในหลายกรณีย่อมมีลักษณะผันแปรไปตามช่วงเวลาและบริบทของแต่ละสังคมที่มีการตีความ ขณะที่การปฏิบัติตามหลักการอันมีคุณค่าพื้นฐานสากล ได้แก่ ประเด็นในเรื่องสิทธิมนุษยชน เสรีภาพของประชาชน หรือการพัฒนาศักยภาพของมนุษย์ กลับไม่ได้ถูกบรรจุไว้ในกรอบการประเมิน หรือบางเรื่องแม้จะมีการกำหนดในกรอบของแผนยุทธศาสตร์ชาติแต่ก็ไม่สามารถปฏิบัติได้เนื่องจากมีความเป็นนามธรรมสูงมาก ซึ่งเรื่องเหล่านี้ล้วนมิใช่ความผิดของผู้ปฏิบัติ หากแต่ข้อบกพร่องต่างๆ เหล่านี้เกิดขึ้นจากตัวชี้วัดในการประเมินผล นอกจากนั้น แม้ว่ากฎหมาย
ว่าด้วยการจัดทำยุทธศาสตร์ชาติจะได้กำหนดให้มีการทบทวนยุทธศาสตร์ชาติในทุกๆ ห้าปีเพื่อให้มีการแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมยุทธศาสตร์ชาติแล้วก็ตาม แต่หากมีการดำเนินการตามยุทธศาสตร์ชาติแล้วมีความเสียหายเกิดขึ้นอย่างร้ายแรง กลับไม่มีบทบัญญัติใดในกฎหมายที่จะพิจารณาหาหน่วยงานที่ทำหน้าที่รับผิดชอบผลความเสียหายจากการดำเนินการตามยุทธศาสตร์ชาติ ขณะที่หากพิจารณาตามหลักกฎหมายมหาชนแล้ว ปัจจัยสำคัญที่สุดต่อการคงอยู่และความสำเร็จของกฎหมายจัดทำยุทธศาสตร์ชาติซึ่งเป็นผลงานของคณะรักษาความสงบแห่งชาติ ก็คือความยืดหยุ่นของตัวยุทธศาสตร์ชาติ
และการดำเนินการของคณะกรรมการยุทธศาสตร์ชาติที่สอดคล้องกับหลักนิติรัฐและเสรีประชาธิปไตย

From 1932 revolution of Siam, The Thailand’s development plan was established as the first five-year plan to promote subjects related to economics. Since then, Thailand has expanded its subject areas to cover economic and social development. The next 20 years, after Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand
(B.E. 2560 (2017)) and the National Strategy Preparation Act B.E. 2560 comes into use, The National Strategy ; The 20-year plan for national development will come into effect as a “framework” for the legislation, public decision and implementation of government policies. All government agencies and public organizations are required to comply with the master plan including budget allocations must be in line.
Also elected governments failing to comply with the plan will face impeachment.
In a Representative, the will of the state is formulated and expressed not directly by the people themselves, but by their representatives to whom they delegate the power deliberation and decision-making. Many have questioned about the appropriate framework of the National Strategy. Will the next elected government that comes to power have enough independence to govern and determine its own policies? In addition, what will be the role of the National Strategy Committee (NSC) and what relationship will it have with the Cabinet for its implementation of the National Strategy. Even though, whoever becomes the prime minister must chair as The NSC, the board will be prepare a draft and give opinions for the cabinet. Thus, in this regard governments will be able to determine its policies, plans and projects suitable to the situation in the future and the NSC shall exercise such power through the cabinet or governmental actions in accordance with the rule of law.

This May, voters in the Philippines will elect the son of a notorious dictator. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., or “Bongbong”, is the top candidate to replace Rodrigo Duterte as President. Polls show the younger Marcos with a healthy lead over his opponent, the incumbent Vice President Leni Robredo. The result could see the return of a political dynasty famous for its corruption and a penchant for abuse of power. The May 9 election results could have deep implications for Thailand and broader southeast Asia. For the Philippines, like other parts of east and southeast Asia, the most problematic leaders often arrive as potential saviors. In the 1960s, frustration with the political ruling class brought Marcos to power in the Philippines. Promises to intensify public works projects, boost agricultural yields, tackle growing income inequality, and bring law and order to society gave him instant legitimacy. Similar problems, including a perceived lack of progress coming to terms with drugs and crime brought Duterte to power five years ago, and like Marcos before him, brought disastrous results.

The 2011 Thai general election was seen by many Thai political analysts as a watershed moment that would hopefully be the tipping point of socio-political reconciliation in the drawn out political struggle that has characterized Thai politics since 2005. The highly contested nature of Thai politics becomes salient when viewing campaign posters pictorial and linguistic content. The most controversial of which was the " Vote No " campaign taken on by the For Heaven and Earth Party, which is a political party nominally associated with Thailand's conservative People's Alliance for Democracy. This study seeks to unwrap and decode the semiotics of this party's political campaign posters in Thailand's 2011 general election by providing cultural context to the application of multimodal discourse analysis and critical semiotics framework. I will argue that the " Vote No " campaign and its campaign posters depicting politicians as animals is a continuing political discourse of conservative Buddhist philosophers/scholars that reaches back to the 1980s. Furthermore, the " Vote No " campaign seeks to create dis sonance and reinstate conservative rule via monarchial and/or military intervention by creating political deadlock thereby undermining democratic rights and rule by the exercising of democratic rights of voting, thus disenfranchising citizens by their own hand.

Despite the often-repeated assertion that Buddhism and politics are, or at least must be, separate matters, Buddhism has been closely intertwined with politics one way or another since the Buddha’s time. In Thailand, Buddhism has been used since the end of the 19th century as a tool to legitimate state power. In the following decades, it has been progressively centralized under a national hierarchy, which is still existing today. This scheme was not altered after the change of the country’s political framework in 1932 and political tensions with the sangha came to the fore during the political troubles of the 1970s. The emergence of an increasing political divide in Thailand since the mid-2000s, around two broad groups which have been dubbed the Yellow Shirts and the Red Shirts, has engulfed the monastic community, leading to a growing activism by some Buddhist groups, some temples and some monks. Numerous monks mingled with Red Shirts demonstrators in April-May 2010, and some were on the front-line when the military gave the assault on the Red Shirts’ camp in downtown Bangkok. In the most recent years, these tensions have coalesced around the controversial Dhammakaya temple and have impacted the choice of the leader of the Thai monastic community. Although, tensions with the sangha are nothing new, they have weakened the ability of Buddhism – one of the national pillars of the Thai national ideology – to be a focal point as the country is going through a difficult transition with the end of seven-decades prestigious reign and political uncertainties clouding the horizon.

This paper shows that the dynamic class relations in Thailand offer some useful perspectives on the current political struggle taking place on the streets of Thailand. Rather than seeing a discontent minority in opposition, which views itself overwhelmed and steamrolled by a majority led by reformist business elites Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, there is an active class struggle between two elite factions in Thailand, who are vying for political supremacy. This is a twist from the classic Marxist and Weberian account of class conflict between workers and capitalists, because in Thailand the struggle takes place among elites, whereby the workers and the farmers principally support one elite faction, the reformists. They stand in opposition to the conservative minority, which has supporters among some businessmen, the monarchy, the military, and the professional middle class. The capitalist-worker paradigm is still an underlying feature of the class struggle, but it is strongly mediated by the two elite factions that immediately contend for political power.

The application of theatre media for social change and development is a  common activity in the developing societies of Asia and Africa since the last century. Compared to traditional classic theatre, community theatres are different because they are rather political in their views and ideology. Contemporary Thai theatre NGO Makhampom Theatre Group has been working on development for the last 30 years, stating they are a Theatre for Development (TfD). This thesis explores the possibilities and limitation of providing Human Rights Education and social reformation through the community theatre process. For the study, one of the Youth Theatre projects of Makhampom, named Dao Loog Gai, in Pitsanulok province has been studied as a case study.

This Thesis argues that the development theatre implemented by the Makhampom Theatre Group develops community culture but it has not developed a rights based approach to participation and thus empowerment. In this context Makhampom Theatre Group as conveyer of Human Rights Education is not as strong as it could be, and their potential for being an agent for social change or
reformation has been compromised. Finally this thesis concludes with some suggestions for the theatre process of Dao Loog Gai, i.e. Makhampom Theatre Group for updating practices and developing a more interactive relationship with the communities and audience.

There is a seeming paradox involved in the recognition of Phanom Rung, the ruins of an Angkorean-era shrine located in Buriram province in northeastern Thailand, as a shrine of national significance for it was built not by Thai but by Khmer at a time when much of what is today northeastern and east central Thailand was under the control of the rulers of Angkor. Moreover, the shrine is not a Buddhist one, but was dedicated to the Hindu god Viṣṇu and incorporates elements associated with the cult of Śiva as well. What led Thai Buddhists to give such national attention to a localized Khmer Hindu shrine?
When a lintel from the shrine was taken in the 1960s from Thailand to the US and ended up in the Art Institute of Chicago, this was little noticed by the Thai government for over two decades. In early 1988 the lintel of the sleeping Viṣṇu from the Phanom Rung monument became a national cause celèbre. The immediate reason for the timing of the affair lay in the fact that HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the daughter of King Bhumibol, was scheduled to open the shrine after completion of its reconstruction in May 1988. A group claiming to speak for the people of Thailand began to agitate for the return of the lintel. It is not coincidence that the controversy erupted at a time when Angkor was on the verge of being re-opened to tourists.
I argue in this paper that Thai who made an issue over the theft of the lintel and its presence in an American museum were seeking implicit validation from the West for a Thai claim to the legacy of Angkor.

We advance two claims in this chapter. First, political elites have continued to exert control and influence over traditional and social media in three major ways: a) establishing new institutions to reduce media independence, b) taking direct ownership of media outlets in order to advance their political agenda, and c) shaping the content and discourse of both traditional and social media through state channels.  Specifically, we argue that the Thai military and its conservative-royalist allies made a comeback in their dominance over the media during two recent periods of authoritarian rule (2006 – 2007 and 2014 – 2015). Our second claim is that the intense political conflicts in Thailand during the past decade have deepened the partisanship of the media. The chapter addresses the strictly “political dimension”, the relationship between media organizations and political parties or groups. In the short to medium-term, the expansion of Internet access and growth in new media usage is unlikely to contribute significantly to meaningful political change in Thailand. The institutional constraints that limit press freedom and civil liberties will, that is, militate against the greater engagement of citizens via those media.