The Thai Style Democratic Regime (2006- 2017) in Thai Bureaucratic Polity after the Thaksin Chinnawatra Period

Abstract

Since the 2006 coup against the Thaksin Shinawatra government, Thai political structure has been transformed into a stronger bureaucratic polity. Over the subsequent decade (2006-2017), the Thai state remained unsuccessful in solving problems in the areas of the economy, political legitimacy, security and democratization. Using historical institutionalism, supplemented by a state-society approach and structuralism, as analytical framework, this study examines the power structure  underlying the Thai-style democracy of the Thai bureaucratic polity. The Thai-style democracy involved the establishment of authoritarianism both in the constitutions and in social values inculcation, so as to manage problematic political conflicts. However, such a regime has to contend with pressures both internal and external to the state for democratization. Its response was to introduce the new mechanism of independent agencies to check and balance the political institutions. The military held the reins of government and a network of lawyers was engaged in adjusting the social structure. The military government uses the government bureaucracy to set and implement policies that still continue to promote values associated with patrimonial royalist clientelism and strengthen the Thai bureaucratic polity. Therefore, even if the Thai state should allow elections to be held and elected government to be installed, the Thai-style democracy, long entrenched, would continue to hinder the development of democracy and to drag the Thai state back toward the cycle of coups and authoritarian government.