Culture and electoral politics in Southern Thailand : a study of party identify, group formation and the symbolic construction of political allegiances in SongKhla province Askew

จาก ThaiPoliticsGovernment

Askew, Marc Richard. Culture and electoral politics in Southern Thailand : a study of party identity, group formation

     and the symbolic construction of political allegiances in SongKhla province. Australia : Victoria University. 2005.

Report Summary

This study explores the multi-level dynamics that underlie the continuing electoral dominance of the Democrat Party in southern Thailand. While Democrat strength in the South has long been acknowledged as a distinctive feature of the political geography of Thailand, there have been no detailed studies undertaken that explore the processes underlying this regional phenomenon. In addressing the particular case of the Democrat Party in the South, I aim to contribute to a understanding of the dimensions and character of Thailand’s “political culture” generally. The research focuses in particular on the varied cultural processes and idioms that are central to perceptions behaviour and alliances interacting at a range of levels in the political community. Using an anthropological approach based on ethnographic and qualitative research methods, this study involves a detailed treatment of political group and campaigns in four elections that were staged in the southern province of Songkhla: the Constituency 3 by-election of February 2004; the Hat Yai Municipal elections of the same month, the Songkhla Provincial Administrative Organization elections of March 2004 and the national elections of February 2005. The research for this study was undertaken between the years 2003-2005, a period that most commentators would agree has seen striking changes in the national political landscape, particularly in relation to two phenomena: first, the advent of a so-called “new politics” exemplified by the Thai Rak Thai Party and its marketing-based electoral politics, and secondly, the advent of direct elections of local and provincial government leaders (nayok) and the more direct involvement of national parties in local electoral contests. The TRT Party gained increasing parliamentary dominance during its period in office 2001-2005, which gave the party considerable advantages over the Democrats at a national level. However, despite TRT’s highly popular populist policies which were confidently marketed as a ‘new’ policy and performance-based from of politics and government, in the 2005 national elections TRT failed to dislodge the Democrat Party from its southern stronghold, even through the party gained an overwhelming victory in all other regions. Through a detailed account of political group and events in Songkhla Province, this study shows how the Democrat Party ascendancy is based two key dimensions of solidarity: 1) effective management of strategic political networks at all levels which are linked by mutually-reinforcing phuak and party allegiances, and 2) the cultivation and reproduction of powerful myths which serve to connect ordinary people to an idea of the Democrat Party as an embodiment of idealized qualities of southern Thai identity, and as a moral being that is virtuous and trustworthy. Reproducing popular allegiance on the emotional and cultural foundations of trust, southern Democrat Party orators are able to convincingly portray opposing political contenders as inauthentic, immoral and even demonic “others.” The national-level party elite continually proclaims that the party’s core distinguishing feature is its formal constitutional liberal principles – its udomkan (a term usually translated into English as “ideology”). However, most Democrat supporters in the South do not comprehend udomkan in this formal and theoretical sense. Udomkan is conceived rather as an almost sacred essence that blinds supporters together in emotional relations of trust. Democrat Party solidarity in the South draws its strength from the two complementary patterns o f persons-focused phuak loyalties (that serve to link the higher and middle ranks of party supporters) and romanticized myths of the party as a moral and trustworthy being (linking ordinary people to the idea of the party). The continued Democrat Party ascendancy in the South will depend on the extent to which intersecting and multi-level phuak networks can maintain coherence in the face of individual members’ political ambitions and whether the dominant myths of the party maintain their emotional hold on ordinary people.