and then, explores the politics of globalization as it has been interpreted in thai public discourses and the political economy of globalization as a contested causal factor behind changes in national policy and political authority. Because of its long-standing integration into the world economy, the Thai case can add perspective to debates about globalization that are often focused exclusively on late twentieth-century manifestations of the dynamic between external forces and domestic change. How appropriate it is to base conclusions about globalization on the Thai case depends on one's position in the academic debate over it. The most trenchant rejection of many globalization theories tends to be based on studies of the developed countries of the North, which in general are less economically open and more politically able to define the terms of their openness than small developing countries. Thailand is a developing country with fairly unexceptional political and institutional attributes. Given its high level of structural integration in both global and region economies, Thailand should be an easy case for "hyperglobalists" and "transformationalists", who see globalization as having a significant impact on policy and political, but a difficult case for "skeptics