Leadership and Political Officials. The key to political advancement is a membership in of the Lao Peoples' Revolutionary Party. In the early years of the regime, political criteria for membership were paramount, including "class background." As a new elite has consolidated itself, family politics and connections have come to play a prominent role in gaining access to the party and the privileges that flow from it. Members of the old grand families have gradually been able, through intermarriage with the emerging communist elite, to "cancel out"
A group of Buddhist monks visit houses at dawn to collect alms in Vientiane.
A group of Buddhist monks visit houses at dawn to collect alms in Vientiane.
their class background for political purposes while trading on their possession of cultural and economic capital. This elite has gravitated toward deeply rooted symbolic practices of power, such as sponsoring temple rebuilding and the casting of Buddha images. With the growing economic power of these new elite families, more conventional entourages have gathered around "big men," who demand deference, which was frowned upon in the egalitarian aftermath of the revolution.
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