In most countries, people want to be able to vote; they want the right to elect their leaders, and they form themselves into parties to put forward their representatives to run for elective office. But elections are not a reliable guide to telling us much about how government actually functions, and in trying to understand Thai politics, I think paying too much attention to electoral politics is misleading. The activities of political parties and elections obscure the way Thai politics actually works. I confess I may devalue electoral politics because when I first came to live in Thailand as a Peace Corps Volunteer, Thai political parties and elections did not matter very much. I still believe they do not matter very much. I came to Thailand as an agent of American imperialism – this was “soft” imperialism that went hand-in-hand with the harder forms of imperialism being conducted by the American government during the Cold War. When I first arrived in Thailand in September 1963, F. M. Sarit Thanarat was prime minister. Technically, I was an employee of Sarit’s government, and after he died in December 1963 and Thanom and Prapat took over, I was still employed by a military dictatorship. Elections and political parties didn’t matter then, and I guess I think they still don’t matter very much.