The Making of Thailand’s Praetorian State from the 1947 Coup to the 2014 Coup
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v52i1.665Keywords:
a praetorian state, Thai military, monarchy, coup d’état, internal security affairsAbstract
This paper employs the concept of praetorianism to analyze the Thai military’s political power since the 1947 coup and up to the 2014 one. Three aspects are under consideration: the attempts to institutionalize the military’s power via the legal system, its administrative power, and its power over internal security affairs. The power of the Thai praetorian state in each period varied. However, defending the monarchy became of paramount importance in its ideology, mission, and source of legitimacy to interfere in politics. The Thai praetorian state was built upon cooperation among the armed forces and its allies in the royalist network. It has successfully led the country in the directions it desired, greatly expanding its power over internal security affairs, limiting control of civilians over the military and weakening parliamentary politics. Significantly, since the 1947 coup, the power of the military became entrenched in the infrastructure of power. Subsequently, the military was able to destabilize elected governments easily. Such was a real challenge to elected governments since the 2006 coup.
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