center of power and policy-making outside the bureaucracy, a govern- mental elite must become the spokesman and instrument of the bu- reaucracy" (p. 320). This premise is, it seems, not determinately sus- tained, nor for that matter does the premise itself seem essential to Riggs's basic interpretation, that of government by a ruling elite composed of clique groups with certain kinds of aims, values, and powers.
There are indeed substantial relations between the ruling groups and the bureaucracy, as Riggs shows. Whether the elite serves as spokesman and instrument for a bureaucracy in which general pay levels have not been raised since 1952 is another matter.
Certainly it seems that in some ways "the bureaucracy"-the stable, inertial congeries of agencies (especially the civilian ministries) -does seem distinguishable from the small clique-group structure that rules. At any rate if it seems essential to preserve the label of "bureaucratic polity" in explaining Thai politics, it seems useful to think of that polity as something like a tropical iceberg. Most of it is beneath the surface or level where the action of this book largely takes place.