Title: Class Conflict and Royalist Mass Politics: The Irony of Democratization and the Decline of Royal Hegemony in Thailand
Speakers: Professor Dr. Kasian Tejapira, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University

Date: March 5th (Thurs.), 2015, 16:00 – 18:00
Place: Tonan-tei Room No. 201, Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, CSEAS, Kyoto University

Abstract:
I intend to approach the current almost decade-long political crisis in Thailand from two perspectives i.e. those of power shift and cultural political hegemony. From a comparative historical point of view, the current crisis fits into a pattern of cyclical power shifts in modern Thai politics in which an initial opening/ liberalization of the economy led to the emergence of a new class/social group who in turn grew and rose to politically challenge the existing regime of the old elite and their allies. Then an extended period of political contest and turmoil ensued with varying elements of radical transformation and setback, reaction and compromise which usually ended up in a measure of regime change. A remarkable feature of the ongoing power shift in Thailand is the ironic reversal of political stance and role of the established urban middle class who have turned from the erstwhile vanguard democratizers of the previous power shift into latter-day anti-democratizers of the current one, with the globally-dominant ideology of liberal democracy being torn asunder at its seams as a result. The preferred strategy of the recent anti-democratic movements has been violent street politics and forceful anarchic mass occupation of key administrative, business and transportation centers to bring about socio-economic paralysis, virtual state failure and government collapse. The aim is to create a condition of un-governability in the country that will allow them to exploit King Bhumibol’s hard-earned hegemonic position and the deep-seated constitutional ambiguity of the locus of sovereignty in Thailand’s so-called “Democratic Regime of Government with the King as Head of the State” so as to appeal to heaven for divine political intervention. This has resulted inadvertently in the increasing politicization of the monarchy and concomitant decline of royal hegemony as the symbolic ties between democracy and the monarchy in Thailand becoming unraveled. In this light, the latest coup by the NCPO military junta on May 22nd this year is thus a statist/ bureaucratic politic attempt to salvage both the cohesiveness of the Thai state apparatus in the face of the societally self-destructive, protracted political class conflict that has reached a stalemate and the aggravatingly vulnerable monarchy.

About the speaker:
KASIAN TEJAPIRA is a professor of political science at Thammasat University in Bangkok. The author of Commodifying Marxism: The Formation of Modern Thai Radical Culture, 1927-1958 (Kyoto University Press & Trans Pacific Press, 2001) and other academic publications both in Thai and English, he is also a ” noted columnist, burgeoning poet, and was formerly a radical activist and guerrilla fighter in the jungle of northeastern Thailand.”

Moderator: Caroline HAU, CSEAS, Kyoto University

* This Special Seminar is sponsored by the “Emerging State” Grants-in Aid for Scientific Research (Kaken) Project.