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Democracy in Thailand is the result of a complex interplay of traditional and foreign attitudes. Although democratic institutions have been imported, participation in politics is deeply rooted in Thai village society. A contrasting strand of authoritarianism is present not only in the traditional culture of the royal court but also in the centralized bureaucracies and powerful armed services borrowed from the West. Both attitudes have helped to shape Thai democracy's specific character. This topical volume explores the importance of culture and the roles played by leadership, class, and gender in the making of Thai democracy. James Ockey describes changing patterns of leadership at all level...
This book uniquely applies the security reform agenda to Southeast Asia. It investigates recent developments in civil-military relations in the region, looking in particular at the impact and utility of the agenda on the region and assessing whether it is likely to help make the region more stable and less prone to military interventions. It provides an historical overview of the region’s civil-military relations and goes on to explore the dynamics of civil-military relations within the context of the security sector reform framework, focusing on the experiences of four of the region’s militaries: Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. It argues that although regional militaries have not necessarily followed a ‘Western’ model, significant developments have occurred that are broadly in keeping with the security sector reform agenda, and which suggests that the prospects for stable civil-military relations are brighter than some sceptics believe.
The development of the Thai-American alliance from 1947 to 1958 dramatically transformed both countries' involvement in Southeast Asia. Bounded by two important political events in Thailand, an army coup in 1947 and the military's assumption of complete control of government in 1958, the period witnessed both the entrenchment of authoritarian military government in Thailand and a revolution in U.S.-Thai relations. During these years the modern Thai political system emerged, and the United States established its interest and influence in mainland Southeast Asian affairs. The developments of the period made possible American's later, more extensive, involvement in Indochina. A Special Relationship provides the most comprehensive analysis of this critical founding period of the Thai-American alliance. It reveals surprising new information on joint covert operations in Indochina, American support for suppression of government opponents, and CIA involvement in Thai domestic politics.
The massacre on October 6, 1976, in Bangkok was brutal and violent, its savagery unprecedented in modern Thai history. Four decades later there has been no investigation into the atrocity; information remains limited, the truth unknown. There has been no collective coming to terms with what happened or who is responsible. Thai society still refuses to confront this dark page in its history. Moments of Silence focuses on the silence that surrounds the October 6 massacre. Silence, the book argues, is not forgetting. Rather it signals an inability to forget or remember—or to articulate a socially meaningful memory. It is the “unforgetting,” the liminal domain between remembering and forge...
Using Jit Poumisak's The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today (1957), Reynolds both rewrites Thai history and critiques relevant historiography. Discussing imperialism, feudalism, and the nature of power, Reynolds argues that comparisons between European and Thai premodern societies reveal Thai social formations to be "historical, contingent, and temporally bounded."
Throughout its history, Thailand has shown remarkable resiliency, adaptability, and creativity in responding to serious threats and crises, and this since much earlier times when it was known as Siam. This book, while focusing on the modern period, does reach back to ancient kingdoms but also shows the impressive rise to a modern democracy, although still endowed with a king, and even more impressively, an economic “tiger.” Moreover, it has become a prime tourist destination and is thus known to vast numbers of foreigners as a sort of “instant Asia.” The Historical Dictionary of Thailand, now in its third edition, covers this amazing story in various ways. First, the chronology trace...
The second edition, which first provides an overview of the country in the introduction, traces the long and complicated history in the chronology and goes into much greater detail in the dictionary. Offering 64 new entries, as well as updates and revisions to older ones, the dictionary presents important persons, places, institutions, and more in an easily accessible resource. Significant recent events are discussed including the 1997-98 Thai economic crisis and its effects, reforms of the national government, and the growth in political roles of both businessman and other middle class members. In addition, the book updates basic information relative to population growth, urbanization, and industrialization of the economy. All this is topped off by a solid bibliography making this an essential reference tool.
Branding Authoritarian Nations offers a novel approach to the study of nation branding as a strategy for political legitimation in authoritarian regimes using the example of military-ruled Thailand. The book argues that nation branding is a political act that is integral to state legitimation processes, particularly in the context of authoritarian regimes. It applies its alternative reading of nation branding to eight different sectors: tourism, economy, foreign direct investment, foreign policy, education, culture, public relations, and the private sector. The author explains that nation branding produces specific kinds of applied national myths, referred to as ‘strategic national myths.�...
This study challenges the prevailing view that Thailand's democratization process in the 1990s was led by the active middle class. It presents an alternative explanation, examining certain 'passive' forces. The author argues the need to break free from the spell of the assumption that the middle class is pro-democracy and turn attention toward anti-democratization forces because the pace of political democratization was slowed down by the presence of such forces. This book will emphasize the fresh point of view that democratization was advanced by appeasement of the forces that were reluctant to democratization. The Japanese original of this book won an Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize in 2003.