At the 137th GRIPS Forum on April 24, 2017, Dr. Thongchai Winichakul, Chief Senior Researcher, Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO) Emeritus Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, gave a lecture titled “Royalist-guided Democracy in Thailand: Its History, Conditions for Success and Prospect”.

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Abstract

Thai democracy in the past 40 years has in fact been a guided democracy under the dominance of the monarchy that has wielded influence over the elected authority, the military, the judiciary and the bureaucracy in every administration.

The talk will elaborate the history of the monarchy’s involvement in politics since 1932 through the 1970s when it became the single source of political legitimacy to the 1990s when it achieved political dominance. A few necessary factors for its success will be explained, namely, the making of King Bhumibol (r.1946-2016) as the People’s Monarch, and the hyper-royalist condition that began in the mid-1970s. Given the king’s death recently, however, its future is precarious. Is its decline good for democratisation in Thailand in the short and long term?

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Speakers’ Profile:

Dr. Winichakul currently works on the intellectual foundation of modern Siam (1880s-1930s) and also a book on the memories of the 1976 massacre in Bangkok. He also publishes five books and several articles in Thai, including many political and social commentaries. His book, Siam Mapped (1994) was awarded the Harry J Benda Prize from the Association for Asian Studies (USA) and the Grand Prize from the Asian Affairs Research Council (Japan). He was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Award in 1994. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and was elected the President of the Association for Asian Studies in 2013/14. His research interests are in cultural and intellectual history of Siam including nationalism, modern geography, cartography, and historical knowledge.