Thai Political Thoughts in Development Policy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v51i2.682Keywords:
political thought, development policy, state power and legitimacy, critical discourse analysis, Thai politicsAbstract
Behind every development policy, there exist political thoughts. Within such thoughts, the state uses its power to construct the “knowledge” and “direction” of development in order to get its desired results. This research article aims to study Thai political thoughts in development policy by using critical discourse analysis. The chosen text is the Handbook of Moving Forward the Country’s Development Following the Sustainable Thainess Programme which the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)’s government produced and intentionally distributed its contents to the people through several campaigns in villages and communities before the 2019 election. The text indicated four main political thoughts, namely (1) Thai (Thai Niyom) and International (Sakol Niyom) Democracy (2) Electing “Good Persons” (3) Clientelist State, and (4) The people as Passive clients. In essence, the NCPO’s thoughts and practices reflected a hybridisation of the traditional and the new. By applying the former, the government aimed to retain its authoritarian role, and by using the latter, the government expected to gain the support and acceptance from the people. Overall, these findings could be understood within the economic, social and political contexts of the Thai development policies from the past to the present.
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