Author: Peter Warr, ANU

In Thailand, the term ‘populism’ does not yet have the negative connotations it has earned in Latin America and Europe, but the trend is in that direction.

This was the message of a seminar entitled ‘Rethinking Populist Policy: From Thaksin to Yingluck’, held on 30 May at the Thailand Development Research Institute in Bangkok. Read more…

Author: Anders Engvall, Stockholm School of Economics

On 28 February in Kula Lumpur, Thailand’s government signed an agreement to initiate peace talks between the Thai National Security Council and Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C), one of the major separatist groups in southern Thailand.

The talks are a step toward ending the long-running conflict, but there is still no ceasefire agreement, and a political settlement is far away. Read more…

Author: Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Chulalongkorn University

Thailand has regained relative calm and stability over the past year, following a long period of political turmoil stretching back to 2005.

The government has finally had some breathing space to roll out its Thaksin-inspired consumption-driven policy agenda. Read more…

Author: Patrick Jory, UQ

When the then-US ambassador to Thailand, Ralph Boyce, was informed after the 19 September 2006 coup that the King’s privy councillor and former army commander, General Surayud Chulanont, was likely to be installed by the coup-makers as prime minister, he recorded his view of the choice in a confidential communication later released as one of the Wikileaks cables:

‘[Surayud] is the right person for the job … Read more…

Author: Andrew Walker, ANU

In order to understand the political conflict that has convulsed Thailand over the past decade, a new perspective on rural Thailand is required.

Thailand’s 21st century peasants have mobilised to defend the direct relationship they have established with the Thai state over the past 40 years. This is not the old-style politics of the rural poor, characterised by rebellion, revolution or resistance. Read more…

Author: Bruce Chapman, ANU

In recent decades Southeast Asian countries have enjoyed simultaneously rapid economic growth and a significant expansion of the higher education sector.

This is not a coincidence: higher education both contributes to and is caused by economic growth. Read more…

Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment

With Europe threatening to push the global economy into yet another recession, one would think this would be a time for economies to batten down the hatches, build fiscal and foreign exchange buffers, and brace for the coming storm.

Think again. Yingluck Shinawatra’s government recently introduced a new rice policy that will cause a haemorrhaging of Thailand’s public funds at a time when its economy desperately needs to improve its international competitiveness by increasing public investment in education, transport and energy. Read more…

Author: Vikram Nehru, Carnegie Endowment

Thailand has witnessed an upsurge in violence throughout its unsettled south. The message is clear: more repression will not pacify the region, so the government and the military need to adopt a different strategy.

On 31 March 2012, two separate and apparently coordinated bomb explosions killed 14 people and wounded hundreds more in Yala Province in southern Thailand, making March the region’s most violent month in recent years (73 violent incidents led to 56 deaths and injured 547 others). Read more…

Author: John Blaxland, ANU

The recent bombings in the tourist city of Hat Yai in southern Thailand reflect deep-seated and enduring institutional problems that defy easy categorisation.

Commentators have put forward many explanations for this complex situation, ranging from seeing the conflict in terms of a counter-terrorist campaign as part of the so-called global war on terror, to nationalism, religious extremism, linguistic and cultural disenfranchisement, poverty, lack of education, corruption and absence of the rule of law. Read more…

Author: Bandid Nijathaworn, ThaiBMA and IOD

Thailand is emerging from one of the worst floods in history.

The floods, which struck in the second half of last year, damaged key industries across the country, including agriculture and manufacturing, and brought on a sharp drop in output, with GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2011 dropping to negative 9 per cent. Read more…

Author: John Blaxland, ANU

Popular perception in the West often characterises the Thai military as being a totally self-serving and coup-prone organisation.

But in reflecting on political developments in Southeast Asia, Western observers tend to follow the classic Western liberal tendency of painting complex situations in black-and-white terms. Read more…

Authors: Pisit Leeahtam and Cynn Treesraptanagul, Chiang Mai University

Thailand’s promising economic growth in 2011 was unfortunately stalled when the country faced its worst flooding in decades toward the end of the year.

Seven industrial estates in the Central Plain were inundated; and outputs contracted by 12 per cent quarter on quarter, causing annual GDP growth to plummet to 0.1 per cent from 7.8 per cent in 2010. Read more…

Author: Patrick Jory, UQ

When Thailand’s royalist-military junta appointed a panel to draft the new Thai constitution following the September 2006 coup, the idea was to ‘firewall’ the document from any changes the regime’s enemies might try to impose in the future.

One of these firewalls was Article 291, which lays down regulations designed to stymie such attempts. Read more…

Author: Pavin Chachavalpongpun, ISEAS

Burma is opening up. In the past few months foreign leaders paid high-profile visits to the long-isolated country, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague who both congratulated Burma on its progress toward democratisation.

These endorsements signal that Western sanctions against Burma could soon be lifted. Read more…

Author: Mark Carroll, Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce

The muddy floodwaters in Thailand having receded, one of the truths to emerge will be just how important the Thai economy is in both regional and global terms.

Thailand is a manufacturing powerhouse. Countless small and large factories churn out a broad range of finished consumer goods for export, as well as component products vital to global supply chains. Read more…