Issue 6

Pasuk Pongphaichit on Thailand

Thank you very much, Acharn Giles. The title of my talk, “A Country is a Company, a PM is a CEO,” is based on a statement Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra made in November 1977 when […]

Book Reviews

Book Review. Democratization in Thailand: Grappling with Realities

Democratization in Thailand: Grappling with Realities『民主化の虚像と実像-タイ現代政治変動のメカニズム』Tamada Yoshifumi玉田芳文Kyoto / Kyoto University Press / 2003 Dr. Tamada Yoshifumi, a distinguished scholar of modern Thai politics at Kyoto University, was awarded the 20th Masayashi Ohira Memorial Prize in 2004 for this […]

Issue 5

Yunnanese Muslims along the Northern Thai Border

In the northern reaches of the modern Thai nation-state, along the borders of Myanmar and Laos, people have been on the move since ancient times following seasonal migration routes, pursuing trade, and making new settlements. […]

Issue 4: Regional Economic Integration

The Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy

The economic crisis of 1997 affected everyone in Thailand, even His Majesty the King. Seeing many of his subjects suffering, he advised the Thai people to change their economic philosophy in order to cope with […]

Issue 3: Nations and Stories

Problems in Contemporary Thai Nationalist Historiography

           There are certain periods when historical discourses and their politics – who controls them, the mode by which they are disseminated, how competing histories are suppressed – become central to intellectual or public debate. […]

Issue 3: Nations and Stories

Thailand and Cambodia: A Love-Hate Relationship

The violence which culminated in the burning of the Royal Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh on January 29, 2003, was both shocking and unexpected. The rioting not only inflicted extensive damage to Thai-owned property (fortunately, […]

Issue 3: Nations and Stories

The Thai Cultural Constitution

Translator’s Note. By the mid 1980s, Nidhi Eoseewong was established as one of the most original historians of Thailand. From around 1985, he wrote a series of long essays which use historical perspective to analyse […]

Issue 3: Nations and Stories

On Knowledge, the Nation, and Universals

Let me begin with a poem. I composed it in hiding at the house of one of my aunts right after the 6 October 1976 Massacre at Thammasat University in Bangkok, in which the radical […]

Issue 2: Disaster and Rehabilitation

“Community Forest” and Thai Rural Society

         Anan Ganjanapan Local Control of Land and Forest: Cultural Dimensions of Resource Management in Northern Thailand Chiang Mai / Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University […]

Issue 2: Disaster and Rehabilitation

Mainstream Development— The Mekong

Plans to make the Mekong navigable to bigger boats by blasting rapids and shoals threaten to end a way of life for thousands of villagers. The sky rumbles in the distance and cold wind blasts […]

Issue 2: Disaster and Rehabilitation

Chao Phya: A River Fraught with Danger

Sunisa Soomprasert and Nattaya Binuma are not relatives. In fact, they have never met and live 170 kilometres apart. Still, the two women share a lifeline of sorts, having been born and raised on the […]

Issue 2: Disaster and Rehabilitation

On the Politics of Nature Conservation in Thailand

         Conflict in late twentieth century Thailand among state agencies, local people, urban conservationists, and community-rights NGOs over the issue of protected areas and people is strikingly complex and multi-faceted. The conflict has culminated in […]

Issue 1

Provincializing Thai Politics

Corruption and Democracy in Thailand Pasuk Phongpaichit and Sungsidh Piriyarangsan Chiang Mai / Silkworm Books / 1994  Money and Power in Provincial Thailand Edited by Ruth McVey Honolulu / University of Hawaii Press / 2000 […]

Issue 1

The Voice of the Poor

Having read newspaper reports and watched TV news programs about a recent seminar on poverty alleviation strategies organized by the Thailand Research Development Institute (TDRI), as well as having heard Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra discuss […]

Issue 1

On the Horns of a Dilemma

Thai public intellectuals don’t seem to love and care for the people much these days. They facilely compare the Thais to chicken (I’m still puzzled why Thai people are compared to “chicken in the basket” […]

Issue 1

Thaksinomics and Liquor

Dr. Kasian Tejapera calls the economic policy of the current government “Thaksinomics.” This means, in essence, that the government bestows patronage on its affiliated crony capitalist groups on the one hand and garners support from […]