Conclusion The propagation of Thai-style democracy was an attempt to end perennial questions of political legitimacy by tapping into traditional rationalities of rule, but which left open the road to the development of a democratic people, once economic questions had been addressed and a middle class had come into being. By suppressing the institutional elements of 'Western' democracy and then salvaging Thainess as a resource for a distinctive form of democracy facilitative of political stability and economic growth, Sarit's regime was in a position to bring to centrestage the discourse of development of legitimacy. Economic development and its prerequisites were elevated as regime requirements and outcomes. Sarit's suppression of elements of liberal democracy had its ideological antecedents not simply in royalist myth but also in the notion of "public opinion'. As Thailand shifted to a new consolidated state form emergent in its relationship with the US which brought security to the state and a degree of market openness to the economy, the tensions of Thai-style democracy as a basis for government were soon to be felt. Within a few short years the regime would begin embracing political developmental notions of democracy and fusing them with elements of Thai-style democracy. The shift back to the requirement for rational citizens, not dependent subjects of benevolent regimes that Thai-style democracy implied, would be
gradual basis on which the modern and contradictory, but it formed the only mobilize state of Thailand was able to interact with and its subjects as active participants. struggles over state-for the political some in the inds of project emanating from the had led to a centre; civilizational, constitutional and traditionalist rationali of democracy or complemented each other. Yet no clear and enduring project subjection had emerged. There had yet be a coincidence of hegemonie perspectives on nation and citizenship with particular rationalities of citizenship construction. Certainly, both governmental and hegemonic aspects hege of democracy were in formation, but nothing approaching a stable monic project had crystallized. This is the significance, ideologically, of the of Sarit era. With that regime's embracing of traditionalism, within the fold of a future project of democrasubjection were put modernity, crucial aspects of in place, most significantly, the place of culture in the democratic identit theme would dovetail with the idea of civic culture propa a people: in political development circles. When s actors began to a more extensive programmes of developmental democracy in the 1960s greater heed given to programmes which took the people's position not as in need of transcendence, but rather in need of assimilation into the ways of the modern This assimilation would be sensitive to the assumed place of the traditional in matters of authority, congruent with the idea of civic culture. Phibun's projects of an idealized
modern subject were effectively superseded. In their place more extensive projects of subject reform and citizen construction emerged, which began first with getting to know the people and using this knowledge as a basis to go forward. The great cultural leap, by edict, envisaged by Phib was replaced with the elaboration of technologie of reform centred on the family, communities, beliefs, production, and so on. From change by edict to the hard work of reforming technology, governmentality had arrived, articu lated with the question of producing a sovereign people and democracy. I these developments Saritian Thai-style democracy with its inherent pate nalism, and legitimized by a particular reading of history, was challenged by forms of governmentality around development projects and community participation. Thainess, in these projects, would remain an indelible part of the subjection of citizens, but through an integration with the political development doctrine it would be rationalized, categorized, disenchanted and would become a resource for management towards a Thai modernity. Thus the very Thainess of democracy would become part of the rationalized way of seeing culture and tradition as useful in matters of government. In the reclamation/construction of a posited past, lay a modern project for the construction of citizens. n democracy, then, should not be seen a some at avistic, short-lived throwback; rather it laid the basis for modern projects of cultured democracy, fusing traditionalism with the doctrine of political development.