The coups of February 1991 and 2006 coups surprised all observers. By their own admission, journalists, academics, including Thai academics, and security analysts were caught napping. This failure of intelligence occurred for a reason. The CJG / Thai state cannot be properly discerned with the language currently being used to describe it. The spectacles through which we view the Thai state need new lenses. At the moment things we see things out of focus and everything is blurred.
This picture of the Thai state offers a more realistic understanding of how things actually work. One can speak not only of network monarchy but also of network police force, network army, network ministry of interior, network prime minister and cabinet, network judiciary. Why does this tangle of nodes of power continue to prevail? It is a system that produces multiple centres of rule, each of which is autocratic. The tangle of nodes and cables continues to prevail because it is a check on autocratic rule. We want a strong leader, but we do not want a strong ruler if he (or she, or she as a proxy for he) controls too many of the nodes. If there is too much control, too much tat sin jai yang detkhat [decisive decisions], the system tilts out of balance. Many people feel insecure when that happens (SLIDE, Thaksin in control).
Conclusion. Personally, I am an optimist. I always assume things will get better. I wake up every morning thinking I will have a good day, even if I have something to worry about, like writing this lecture. Today the weather will be better, the next book I read will tell me some of the things I am trying to understand about my research project. In the next election we will have a prime minister that will be better than the previous prime minister. The next prime minister must be better, because the previous prime minister was terrible – weak, indecisive. He was not detkhat.
But about Thai politics, I am a pessimist. I don’t have suggestions for solutions (ข้อเสนอทางออกที่เป็นไปได้สำหรับสังคมไทย) Things will not get better for a long time, because of this autocratic tradition that has been with us for a very long time, and because of the multiple centres that make up the Thai state. The nodes of government can act autonomously.
I do not think it is possible to move forward, it is not possible to take even a single step forward, until we understand what’s really there in the region of Thailand’s neighbours as well as in Thailand itself. Everywhere there is autocratic rule, and people who want it, or have it, like having it and will not relinquish it.
1 I looked in David Streckfuss’s book on lese majesty, Truth on Trial in Thailand (Routledge 2011) to find out where Thailand derived its internal security laws from, or if Thailand created its own security laws, but I could not find anything definite. After World War II, the Thai internal security law was inspired by the anti-communist legislation. I’ve also looked at Thanin Kraiwichien, Kanchai kotmai pongkan khommiwnit (1974), but again I could not find out where the law came from.