 From Illiberal Democracy to Military Authoritarianism: Intra-Elite Struggle and Mass-Based Conflict in Deeply Polarized ThailandPrajak Kongkirati The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2019, vol. 681, issue 1, 24-40 Abstract: Thailand fits the pattern of pernicious polarized politics identified in this volume, where a previously excluded group successfully gains political power through the ballot box, governs unilaterally to pursue radical reforms, and produces a backlash from the traditional power elites. In Thailand, elite conflict has been a major part of the story, but this article argues that political polarization there cannot be merely understood as “elite-driven†: conflict among the elites and the masses, and the interaction between them, produced polarized and unstable politics. Violent struggle is caused by class structure and regional, urban-rural disparities; elite struggle activates the existing social cleavages; and ideological framing deepens the polarization. While the Yellow Shirts and traditional elites want to restore and uphold the “Thai-style democracy†with royal nationalism, the Red Shirts espouse the “populist democracy†of strong elected government with popular nationalism and egalitarian social order. Keywords: polarization; Thaksin Shinawatra; populism; Thai-style democracy; military authoritarianism (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:681:y:2019:i:1:p:24-40 Access Statistics for this article More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |
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