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Socio-Political Culture and the Thai Political Crisis Kitti Prasirtsuk Thammasat University Abstract: The prolonged political crisis in Thailand is attributable to some certain Thai socio- political cultural characteristics that gave rise to several unconventional protests, which were unique and unprecedented in the kingdom. First, the social hierarchy leads to double/multiple standards on law enforcement to the favor of those with more power and wealth. This makes it easy to disobey the law and the rule of the game for people with high hierarchical statuses. The Constitutions have been periodically nullified through military coup, usually with the argument to protect the nation and the monarchy. Using a similar reason, the Yellow-Shirt protestors argued it was necessary to seize the Prime Minister Office and Bangkok airports. Then the Red Shirts retaliated by business district blockades, contending for democracy. Second, the lack of social sanctions among the public makes it easy for corrupt politicians to maintain power and respect, as social pressures fail to mount. This became the source of distrust toward parliamentarian democracy. The lengthy political crisis in Thailand, which has continued since 2005, escalated into unconventional protests and sporadic violence in the past few years. Unconventional protests include the siege of Prime Minister Office and subsequently Bangkok airports in 2008, followed by the protracted blockades of business districts in the following years. The clashes between the Red-Shirt protestors and the military in April 2009 and April-May 2010, the latter of which resulted in 91 death and more than 2,000 injured, represent the violence that tragically erupted in the prolonged political standoff. These incidents reveal the loss of law and order in the kingdom. Observers have been perplexed why such unfortunate incidents happened periodically and yet endlessly and why generally gentle Thais came to be so uncompromising, fiercely confronting the opposite groups, and intentionally breaking the law. This paper seeks to answer such questions, highlighting the significance of Thai cultural characteristics that became the preconditions for unconventional protests and violence. Conceptually, the paper argues that it would be insufficient to view the political crisis without a perspective on culture. Political culture was introduced into political science in the early 1960s by a pioneer work by Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba (1963). Their major point was to address the role of subjective values and attitudes of national populations in the stability of democratic regimes. It turned to extra-institutional variables (norms, values, and attitudes) to explain political outcomes. Notwithstanding, political culture came to be under attack by several strands of criticisms, ranging from non-solid theoretical ground, methodological concerns on survey tools, definitional expansiveness, and the negligence on understanding of symbols Copyright PSA 2011

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Page 1: Socio-Political Culture and the Thai Political Crisis...Socio-Political Culture and the Thai Political Crisis . Kitti Prasirtsuk . Thammasat University. Abstract: The prolonged political

Socio-Political Culture and the Thai Political Crisis

Kitti Prasirtsuk

Thammasat University

Abstract: The prolonged political crisis in Thailand is attributable to some certain Thai socio-political cultural characteristics that gave rise to several unconventional protests, which were unique and unprecedented in the kingdom. First, the social hierarchy leads to double/multiple standards on law enforcement to the favor of those with more power and wealth. This makes it easy to disobey the law and the rule of the game for people with high hierarchical statuses. The Constitutions have been periodically nullified through military coup, usually with the argument to protect the nation and the monarchy. Using a similar reason, the Yellow-Shirt protestors argued it was necessary to seize the Prime Minister Office and Bangkok airports. Then the Red Shirts retaliated by business district blockades, contending for democracy. Second, the lack of social sanctions among the public makes it easy for corrupt politicians to maintain power and respect, as social pressures fail to mount. This became the source of distrust toward parliamentarian democracy.

The lengthy political crisis in Thailand, which has continued since 2005, escalated

into unconventional protests and sporadic violence in the past few years. Unconventional

protests include the siege of Prime Minister Office and subsequently Bangkok airports in

2008, followed by the protracted blockades of business districts in the following years. The

clashes between the Red-Shirt protestors and the military in April 2009 and April-May 2010,

the latter of which resulted in 91 death and more than 2,000 injured, represent the violence

that tragically erupted in the prolonged political standoff. These incidents reveal the loss of

law and order in the kingdom.

Observers have been perplexed why such unfortunate incidents happened

periodically and yet endlessly and why generally gentle Thais came to be so

uncompromising, fiercely confronting the opposite groups, and intentionally breaking the

law. This paper seeks to answer such questions, highlighting the significance of Thai

cultural characteristics that became the preconditions for unconventional protests and

violence. Conceptually, the paper argues that it would be insufficient to view the political

crisis without a perspective on culture.

Political culture was introduced into political science in the early 1960s by a pioneer

work by Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba (1963). Their major point was to address the

role of subjective values and attitudes of national populations in the stability of democratic

regimes. It turned to extra-institutional variables (norms, values, and attitudes) to explain

political outcomes. Notwithstanding, political culture came to be under attack by several

strands of criticisms, ranging from non-solid theoretical ground, methodological concerns on

survey tools, definitional expansiveness, and the negligence on understanding of symbols

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and meanings (Olick and Omeltchenko 2008: 300-302). However, some interest on political

culture has returned, as revealed in the works by Diamond (1993), Harrison and Huntington

(2001), Putnum et al (1994), Inglehart and Welzel (2005), and the Asian Barometer Project

which has continued since the year 2000 to conduct comparative surveys on political

attitudes among Asian countries (www.asianbarometer.org). Political culture, therefore,

arguably remains a useful tool taken by scholars to analyze political outcomes.

On definition, Larry Diamond (1993: 7-8), in line with Lucian Pye, defines political

culture as “people’s predominant beliefs, attitudes, values, ideals, sentiments, and

evaluations about the political system of its country, and the role of self in that system.”

Political culture, in this way, functions as the logic that informs and shapes political actions.

Given the alleged problems on theoretical defensibility and on definitional rigorousness, I

instead employ the term “socio-political culture” to avoid such complications regarding

political culture. I rather focus on explaining the Thai political dilemma through cultural

variables. By “socio-political culture,” therefore, I refer to culture more broadly, not

necessarily the culture oriented toward a political system but culture in the society that has

political implications.

There are two important points to be noted here before proceeding to the main

discussion. First, I don’t take culture as static, recognizing the transformation process which

has been taking place following economic growth and associated social changes (Klausner

2004). Yet, some cultural traits persist and remain detectable, as to be elaborated below.

Second, what I am trying to do here is not to ambitiously cover all the exhaustive current

political conflicts in Thailand. Rather, I seek to shed light on why such unconventional and

unexpected actions (arguably the most punctuated and significant developments in the

conflicts) became possible, and why the state apparatus had remained helpless for so long.

My account, by no means, argues that political culture alone can explain the political crisis in

Thailand. Neither do I discount other factors pertaining to the conflicts, particularly the dual

power structure (Prajak 2011), the funding that sustained the lengthy mobs, the role of

biased media (satellite television, community radio, partisan newspapers and websites, etc).

Rather, I take socio-political culture as the "sufficient” variable that elucidates the

magnitude of the crisis in terms of the unconventional actions.

Divided into two sections, the first part briefly sketches the development of the Thai

political crisis to show how a series of unconventional protests were taking place. The

second section points out some certain cultural characteristics that gave rise to such

unconventional actions, which consequentially made it even harder to solve the political

crisis.

I The Unconventional Protests in the Thai Political Crisis

Thailand has been trapped in the controversy around ex-Prime Minister Thaksin

Shinawatra, who was ousted by the coup d’etat in 2006 and now lives in exile mostly in

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Dubai. The country has been unprecedentedly divided between anti- and pro-Thaksin

camps. The former is led by members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD),

symbolically wearing yellow shirts, while the latter is spearheaded by the United Front for

Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), whose adherents wear red. Notably, yellow

represents the color of King Bhumibhol, while the red color has communist connotation.

The Yellow Shirts charge that Thaksin’s level of corruption and challenge to the monarch

deserved punishment via the coup and a court’s prison sentence. In response, the Red

Shirts argue that the coup was unconstitutional and the subsequent court ruling was only

politically motivated. They demand that Thaksin should be able to return home without

guilt.

The pro-Thaksin camp largely consists of rural residents in the poor north and

northeast regions as well as the urban working class in Bangkok. The anti-Thaksin camp

initially tended to represent middle class Thais (mostly urban dwellers), the military, the

bureaucrats, intellectuals, and people in the south. Such categorization is a bit too

simplistic, as several segments of the middle class and intellectuals sympathize to the Red

and many side with Thaksin, arguing that he ran the country efficiently during his

premiership (2001-06). Police tend to also side with Thaksin, himself a former police officer,

who favored the police in many ways during his time in office, both in terms of welfare in

general and providing senior police officers with key positions in other organizations.

Meanwhile, many low-rank soldiers sympathize with the Reds, sharing identity with the

rural poor. Importantly, many in the anti-Thaksin camp came to distance themselves from

PAD after the Yellow Shirts resorted to extreme tactics like seizing government house and

airports. Similarly, quite a few red supporters came to be disillusioned when some

segments of the Reds resorted to violent tactics via armed groups.

In any case, the Thaksin crisis has expanded to be the issue of class conflict. The red

leaders invented the term Prai (literally means selfdoms) to represent the Red Shirts who

believe they are fighting to overthrow the current establishment allegedly dominated by

Ammart (literally means aristocrats), which refers to a combination of aristocrats, military,

and bureaucrats. In other words, the discourse is being pursued as a struggle of the lower

class versus the upper and middle classes.

It was the Yellow Shirts that first lifted the protests into an unexpected level in 2008.

In the aim to topple the pro-Thaksin government at that time, they started with harassment

tactics, including booing, shouting, picketing, and throwing shoes particularly at the Prime

Ministers (Samak Suntaravej and Somchai Wongsawat) and some key pro-Thaksin

politicians. In August 2008, the yellow-shirt protestors stormed into several government

offices, including state television station and the Ministry of Finance. Importantly, they

actually occupied the Prime Minister Office for several months, taking as the main stage of

protests. The Prime Ministers had to wander to work in other offices like the Donmuang

Airport and the Supreme Commander’s office. In November of that year, the yellow masses

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went further to seize both Bangkok airports for a week, effectively shutting down most

international flights and air cargo (Prasirtsuk 2009). Such actions were obviously against

the law, creating the pretexts to the loss of law and order. One might expect that the police

or the military would step in to prevent or at least would rush to disband the sieges as soon

as possible. Alas, that never happened.

Such unconventional tactics was soon adopted by the Red Shirts, especially after the

pro-Thaksin coalition government was dislodged through the Constitutional Court’s ruling

and subsequently replaced by the anti-Thaksin coalition government. To pressure Prime

Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to step down, the Red Shirts intimidated him by surrounding and

smashing his cars with sticks and stones in two separate incidents. Police officers reportedly

stood by and failed to act. In April 2009, the Red Shirts stormed into the Royal Cliff Hotel in

Pattaya, the venue for a series of scheduled summits linked to the Association of Southeast

Asia Nations (ASEAN). Again, thousands of police and soldiers guarding the hotel failed to

prevent the mass invasion. As a result, the summits were not only aborted but top leaders

from participating countries, including China, Japan, Korea, and ASEAN, had to pathetically

flee the hotel by boats and helicopters.

Worse, the incident was immediately followed by a series of violent riots in

downtown Bangkok, when Red Shirt extremists blocked many roads, burned public buses,

and threatened to blow up propane-loaded trucks. In some neighborhood, with police

helpless, residents formed resistant groups to stop the riots which disturbed and harmed

their livelihood, resulting in some casualties. The riots were eventually terminated after a

few days when the military came to remove the rioters by force, resulting in dozens of

people injured (Prasirtsuk 2010).

Even worse, the Red Shirts came back to step up their pressures on the anti-Thaksin

government in early 2010, demanding immediate parliament dissolution so that a general

election could be convened. The Reds believed that the pro-Thaksin party would win a swift

election and would resume state power. They then occupied some parts of Rajdamnoen

Avenue as their stage, while mobile groups went to protest and to intimidate key

government politicians at various government agencies. Importantly, groups of red

protestors threateningly poured liters of blood at the Prime Minister Office and also at his

private house. After months of stand-off, the first clash broke out in April between the red

protestors and the military at Rajdamnoen Avenue, resulting in many casualties, including

the death of a high-rank military officer and a Japanese news reporter. It became clear that

some armed groups, dubbed as black warriors, were involved in the clash especially

targeting at high-rank military officers. The Red Shirts then relocated to occupy the central

business district in Rajprasong Intersection, which greatly hurt businesses. They even

expanded the area of control to Rajdamri and Silom districts, effectively paralyzing

businesses in downtown Bangkok. The government tried to negotiate several times,

offering to dissolve the Parliament within five months, but most red leaders remained

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staunchest in their stance demanding outright dissolution and a swift general election. The

siege went on for about a month until the military gradually encroached to take back the

occupied areas by force, which was responded fiercely by armed and unarmed protestors.

After the red leaders surrendered themselves to the police and called off the protests, some

furious and unyielding protestors went on rampant and set fire that greatly damaged

shopping malls nearby, particularly the Central World Shopping Center. Several city halls in

provinces were also burned in protest by local reds. It took several days until the situations

subsided with the military control. Over all, the incidents of April and May 2010

consummated in 91 deaths (both civilians, officers, and foreign news reporters) and more

than 2,000 people injured.

In short, the Red Shirts emulated the Yellow Shirts’ tactics but with more

aggressiveness and violence. Central to the issues here is the loss of law and order, which

was caused by both the yellow and the red groups, despite the fact that each group always

claimed itself as pro-democratic movement. Both groups revealed authoritarian characters

without serious consideration to those who would be negatively affected by their actions.

Both the Yellows and the Reds believed that breaking the law by masses would prevent

them from immediate punishment and legal responsibility, as that would make it harder for

the police or the military to take action and there would not be enough prisons to detain

them any way. More importantly, they seemed to believe that such actions were legitimate

for their purposes, whatsoever to bring down corrupt governments, to bring back

democracy, or to protect the monarchy. Peace and security officers, meanwhile, showed a

great reluctance to take any action. They tended to either stand by or take action only after

the damages had been made by protestors for a considerable period. Why did both

protestor groups proceed to such extremes? Why did peace and security officers condone

the unconventional actions at the first place and allow them to continue for so long? These

are the questions to be tackled in the next section.

II The Unhealthy Socio-Political Culture

There are some certain cultural characteristics of the Thais that gave rise to ongoing

political crisis in general and the unconventional protests in particular. Here I focus on the

hierarchical culture and the lack of social sanctions.

1. The Hierarchical Culture and the Inconsistent Rule of Law

Thai society has been widely known as a hierarchical one (Riggs 1966, Hanks 1972,

Lissak 1973, Phillips 1974, Klausner 1993, 2004). It is indicative that the Thais use plenty of

pronouns to refer to other people distinguishingly based on their different statuses and

relationships. This reflects multi-layered vertical relations in the society. Such hierarchical

structure yields a significant implication on the rule of law, which is originally supposed to

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apply equally to any one at any place and any time. Unequal statuses and power led to

double and, in fact, multiple standards of law enforcement. Specifically, people with high

statuses and power are less subjected to legal measures. Plenty of instances can be

provided here. When the police organize a check-point on street, those who are targeted

tend to be people in the lower class like motorcyclists and truck and taxi drivers who, in

many cases, will end up paying some fines or bribes for either petty offenses or

unintentional mistakes like failing to display vehicle registration cards and having expired

licenses. Those who drive sedans, especially luxurious ones, can pass by without any stop

request or disturbance. Rich people who committed a crime may bribe the police to avoid

or lessen punishments they actually deserve. They can also hire a capable lawyer to help

them somehow get a lenient verdict. Those who have good connections can ask some

powerful figures to negotiate for more benign treatments.

There was a famous court case in the mid-1990’s showing that judges were inclined

to give leniency to highly educated persons. A university lecturer with a Ph.D. was declared

guilty of aggravated assault resulting in the death of his wife, but the court reduced the

sentence of four-year imprisonment to two because of his confession and then suspended

the two year sentence for a period of three years with a requirement of fifty hours of

community service. In other words, the lecturer did not actually serve the jail term, causing

a hue and cry from women’s groups and human rights activists who viewed the sentence as

discriminatory. The court, in its explanation, noted that the society would not benefit from

putting in jail a man with such high educational qualifications. It further argued that the

country would lose a valuable academic who helped contribute to national development, if

the accused was jailed. One cannot help but wonder if the same lenient sentence would be

given to a farmer or a laborer who committed the same crime (Klausner 2004: 169-171).

A more politically relevant example can be found in the case of Thaksin’s asset

concealment verdict. Political office holders are required to declare all property and assets

they possess upon taking and after leaving office. In 2000, the Constitutional Court ruled

Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kajornprasart guilty from failing to declare all of his assets,

resulting in his immediate removal from office and five-year ban from politics. The Sanan’s

verdict should have set a precedent for other similar cases in the future. Right after

Thaksin’s landslide election victory in 2001, it became apparent that his assets were not

properly declared; some substantial amounts of corporate shares had been notoriously

transferred to his maids and drivers. Therefore, Thaksin was faced with the charge on asset

concealment, which could put him in the same fate as Sanan. However, because of the

enormous public supports for Thaksin to serve as Prime Minister to help recover the country

from the 1997 economic crisis, the Constitutional Court was under pressure in tendering the

verdict. Eventually, the Court judges ruled in favor of Thaksin in a marginal split vote. The

Thaksin’s verdict reveals how the rule of law can be inconsistently applied.

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As such, Thai society tends to be governed by the rule of man, rather than by the

rule of law. A survey in the Asian Barometer Project reveals that the Thais have a tendency

not to believe in the rule of law (Albritton and Bureekul, 2009). Law enforcement depends

much on who you are and who you know. Inequality under the law tends to be the rule, not

an exception. According to Hofstede’s index on comparative cultural dimensions, Thailand

is ranked quite high on the Power Distance Index (PDI), which is the extent to which the less

powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is

distributed unequally. The high PDI (at 64 out of 100) is indicative of a high level of

inequality of power and wealth within the society. It also suggests that a society's level of

inequality is also endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. Power and

inequality, of course, are fundamental facts of any society, but one should be aware that “all

societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others” (http://www.geert-

hofstede.com/hofstede_thailand.shtml, accessed 4 April 2011). In this way, the higher

hierarchical status you are, the more chance you can avoid being subjected to law

enforcement.

How is the hierarchical and unequal society relevant to the recent political protests

here? The inequality makes it easy, initially for those with power and wealth, not to respect

the law and the rule of the game. First of all, the Thai military has traditionally been inclined

to launch a coup d’etat to overthrow a government, which in effect abolishes the

Constitution, the highest law that governs the nation. The logic flows like this: those with

power in high hierarchical statuses may break the law, especially if deemed necessary. The

military always claim themselves as national guardian. Thus, whenever national security,

which is broadly defined, is perceivably at risk, the military would take control of the nation,

as politicians alone are not trustworthy and not up to the job (Samudavanija 1982, Piewnual

1992). Significantly, the military also claim themselves as the monarchy guards, thus it is

legitimate for them to inflict a coup to protect the royal family from any perceived possible

challengers, may they be communist guerillas or powerful politicians. Such arguments also

justify continuing military participation in politics (Samudavanija 1993). As a rule, the

threats to national security and the challenges to the monarchy can be arbitrarily

articulated. The 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin is no exception.

In the current political crisis, as mentioned above, the Yellow Shirts resorted to

unconventional tactics like harassment (through shouting and throwing) and seizing the

Prime Minister Office and the airports for considerable periods. Such actions clearly

violated the law and yielded negative effects either to targeted persons or to the general

public. People, both Thai nationals and foreigners, were barred from freedom of traveling

inbound and outbound. Here, the Yellow Shirts were operating under the logic not different

from the military: anything, unlawful or not, can be done in order to protect the nation.

Thus, law can be disobeyed and other people must tolerate the negative consequences of

their actions. The rule of law should not be applied indiscriminately towards all groups.

Their groups should be exempt. Considering that many in the Yellow Shirts came from the

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middle and upper classes, their higher hierarchical statuses, in their opinion, should allow

them to evade law enforcement, particularly when they broke the law with the goal to

defend the nation. Even more specifically, when claimed as the acts to protect the

monarchy, some law violation should be definitely condoned. The Yellow leaders always

argued that the yellow mobs should not be held guilty for such actions, which they

interpreted as a mere civil disobedience.

Such behavior among civilians is not new in Thai politics. In the tragic October 6

Incident of 1976, some civilian groups brutally attacked and killed student protestors.

Spearheaded by the groups called themselves as Krathing Daeng (Red Gaurs) and

Nawaphon (Ninth Power), these civilians crushed unarmed student protestors, charging

them as harmful communists who planned to overthrow the monarchy (Prajak 2006).

Though having been well propagandized and some were paid by the military, these ultra-

rightist civilians shared the military’s logic: anything can be done to protect the monarchy.

Having said that, I do not mean that the Yellow Shirts were as violent or brutal as the ultra-

rightist groups of the 1970’s. The Yellows, in fact, were generally gentle, especially when

compared to the Red-Shirt extremists. The point here is that a certain belief is apparently

shared at least among the military, the 1970s’s ultra-rightists, and the Yellow Shirts that

some law violation should be allowed, if that action was to protect the monarchy, the

highest figure in the hierarchical structure in Thai society.

Back to the current political crisis, the Red Shirts came to imitate the Yellows’

unconventional strategy but with a higher degree of militancy. In the rhetoric to protect

democracy, the Red Shirts showed their intolerable discontent against the hierarchical

society and thus demanded more equality and justice, starting from getting their supported

party back to power. As the Yellow Shirts remained unpunished from their seizures of

government house and airports, the Red Shirts should be able to do the same. Not only did

the Red Shirts threatened Prime Minister Abhisit’s life by smashing his cars twice, the Reds

also siege key business districts in downtown Bangkok and, importantly, some of them came

to arm themselves ready to fight with the military. The Reds installed their own check

points not to allow soldiers to enter their occupied zones. In contrast, the police were

welcome and many policemen actually joined the red protests in plain-cloth by choice. As

mentioned earlier, many police constituted the fan of Thaksin, who took care of them well

during his tenure. Surprisingly, while the Reds, who tend to come from the lower class,

demanded justice in the society, they joined hand with the police who generally hurt them

in daily life through arbitrary and discriminate law enforcement against the poor.

Unlike the Yellow Shirts, the Reds’ logic was not that law and order could be

breached because the violators were in the higher hierarchical statuses, as they were

obviously not. Neither could the Red Shirts claim to protect the monarchy. Their actions

were more a reaction against the extreme actions earlier adopted by the Yellows. Here the

Reds justified their actions under the name of democracy, claiming themselves as the

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guardian of democracy. In this sense, to protect democracy, law and order could be

sacrificed as well. Yet, it is notable that both the Yellows and the Reds have reached a

similar conclusion that law and order could be sacrificed for their separate justifications,

either for the nation and the monarchy or for democracy. Though in a different degree,

both groups were at fault in creating a new norm of protests which was not only more

destructive but also made it even more difficult for reconciliation.

As such, the actions of both the Yellows and the Reds showed very few signs of

democratic advocacy, but instead revealed a forceful nature and violated the rights and

freedom of others. According to Jirakraisiri (1981), the Thai political culture tended to be an

amalgam between democratic and dictatorial values, even for those with high education. In

this way, the political culture of both the Yellow Shirts and the Red Shirts are apparently

pertinent to a mixture between democratic and dictatorial values. While they were

respectively fighting for democracy and the goodness of the nation in their own views, it

was inevitable to impose some dictatorial measures, like the unconventional protests, which

the public must tolerate.

2. The Lack of Social Sanctions

The lack of social sanctions represents another Thai cultural characteristics

detrimental to democracy and contribute to the ongoing political crisis. Without substantial

social sanctions among the public, it became easy for corrupt politicians to maintain power

and respect, as social pressures fail to directly mount against them. In the country, intense

money politics has been the norms, whereby politicians invest in vote buying right before an

election and later recoup their benefits through kick-back at an accelerating rate. It is true

that criticisms and condemnation against corrupt politicians in general have been very

strong both from the media and from discussion in most social circles. Thailand has enjoyed

free press which is highly critical to political corruptions. Yet, there is very few concentrated

criticism or condemnation toward specific politicians. Even so, this does not pose a big

problem for them, because as long as they hold some office or remain in some positions

with authority, people will pay them respect any way. Members of Parliament, regardless

of allegedly corrupt or not, will be invited to chair various ceremony for their constituencies,

such as wedding, funeral, and Buddhist ordination. In other words, individual corrupt

politicians are not really pressured by the society. Therefore, the situation in Thailand is like

this: People who want to condemn politicians can do so, but the politicians who corrupt can

also continue their corruption. In short, corrupt politicians still enjoy a high status and

prestige in the society, as there is no substantial social sanction.

The lack of social sanctions is attributable to a combination of two cultural characteristics, namely authoritarianism and the culture of kreng jai (deterrence and reservedness). First, authoritarianism in Thailand is very much of the top-down type. Those with formal authority tend to be the ones who really call the shot. For example, a new appointed minister will not hesitate to remove high-rank bureaucrats and initiate some new

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projects prone for bribery. In most cases, bureaucrats can’t help but just follow. This represents a stark contrast to the Japanese case, in which formal authority does not necessarily have the real authority. There is a plenty of room for bottom-up approaches, particularly in the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats at least until the recent past (Johnson 1982, Vogel 1996). But in Thailand, as long as you are in authority, people tend to obey you.

Second, the culture of kreng jai arguably plays a role here (Klausner 1993). The term has no real comparable word in English, but has a similarity in Japanese language by the term enryo. Yet, the Thai kreng jai has quite a striking contrast to the Japanese counterpart. For the Japanese, enryo means refraining themselves not to cause trouble to other people. Meanwhile, the Thai case means just minding your own business. The Thais tend to be bystander and keep quiet when someone makes trouble to other persons or to the general public, probably fearing that their interventions may unnecessarily bring them some negative consequences (Embree). Accordingly, there is a tendency in Thai society that those who are assertive or mean tend to get their own ways because other people would not oppose but keep quiet.

In sum, the lack of social sanctions makes corrupt politicians fare quite well in the society. This has also become the rationale for the Yellow Shirts not to trust parliamentarian democracy and to get rid of them at all costs. There has always been a temptation among some upper segments in the society to call for extra-parliamentary power to intervene.

In addition, the lack of reading habit contributed to low reading rate, which therefore subjected many Thais to manipulated information. As they did not find information from various sources for themselves, they are vulnerable to one-sided information. There were various new media instruments involved in this political crisis, ranging from satellite TVs, community radio stations, websites, and text messages. Twisted and selective accounts could make the society so divisive and even drove to violence and public disruptions. Disappointingly, such unconventional actions were, by and large, condoned by most supporters of each side.

Conclusion

There are several cultural characteristics of the Thais that are detrimental to democracy and political stability. I have discussed only the major characteristics arguably most relevant to the ongoing political crisis, namely hierarchical culture and the lack of social sanctions. Hierarchical culture led to the inconsistent rule of law, which represents the key condition for this grave political crisis. A confusing mixture between democratic and dictatorial values also tells much about the political crisis in general and the unconventional protests in particular. The Yellow Shirts set the precedent on unconventional actions that the Red Shirts followed suit but with more aggressiveness. The lack of social sanctions, meanwhile, helped maintain power and respect among corrupt politicians. This contributed to the distrust in parliamentarian democracy, particularly among the Yellow Shirts. The paper concludes that culture should be taken more seriously, because it functions as software that drives politics.

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