Reinventing Thailand

Reinventing Thailand PDF Author: Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
ISBN: 9814279196
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
From 2001 to 2006, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra transformed Thailand's international role from one of obscurity into a kind of regional hegemon. Thaksin's diplomatic ambitions were reflected in his myriad of grandiose foreign policy initiatives, designed to locate Thailand at the forefront of regional politics and reinstall the Thai sphere of influence over weaker neighbouring states. He abolished the traditional bending-with-the-wind foreign policy, revamped the Thai Foreign Ministry, and empowered Thai envoys through the CEO Ambassadors programme. But in this process, Thaksin was accused of exploiting foreign policy to enrich his business empire. Thaksin's reinvention of Thailand as an up-and-coming regional power was therefore tainted by conflicts of interest and the absence of ethical principles in the country's foreign policy.

Reinventing Thailand

Reinventing Thailand PDF Author: Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
ISBN: 9814279196
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Get Book Here

Book Description
From 2001 to 2006, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra transformed Thailand's international role from one of obscurity into a kind of regional hegemon. Thaksin's diplomatic ambitions were reflected in his myriad of grandiose foreign policy initiatives, designed to locate Thailand at the forefront of regional politics and reinstall the Thai sphere of influence over weaker neighbouring states. He abolished the traditional bending-with-the-wind foreign policy, revamped the Thai Foreign Ministry, and empowered Thai envoys through the CEO Ambassadors programme. But in this process, Thaksin was accused of exploiting foreign policy to enrich his business empire. Thaksin's reinvention of Thailand as an up-and-coming regional power was therefore tainted by conflicts of interest and the absence of ethical principles in the country's foreign policy.

The Thaksinization of Thailand

The Thaksinization of Thailand PDF Author: Duncan McCargo
Publisher: NIAS Press
ISBN: 9788791114465
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
The 1997 economic crisis ended two decades of pluralism in Thai politics and helped create the conditions for the landslide election victory in January 2001 of Thaksin Shinawatra, a fabulously wealthy telecommunications magnate often compared with Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. Prime minister Thaksin has since exercised an extra-ordinary degree of personal dominance over the Thai political scene. The emergence of Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thai) Party has transformed Thailand's electoral landscape, rendering previous analyses of Thai politics substantially outdated. This book will examine Thaksin's background, his business activities, the emergence of Thai Rak Thai, his relationship with the military, Thaksin's use of rhetoric through media such as radio, his wider political economy networks, and the future direction of Thai politics. This detailed but gripping study draws on extensive research by two leading specialists in the field.

Thaksin

Thaksin PDF Author: Pasuk Phongpaichit
Publisher: NIAS Press
ISBN: 9788791114786
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Thaksin Shinawatra has often been compared to Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Both are fabulously wealthy media magnates who have entered politics. And both have a possessive passion for football. Berlusconi owns Forza Milan and, as many fans note with mixed feelings, Thaksin recently attempted to acquire a 30 per cent stake in Liverpool FC. But there is more to him than football. He became Thailand's prime minister in early 2001 after a landslide election victory in which he promised to 'think new, act new' to transform the country's economy and politics. Since then, Thaksin has been highly popular but also highly controversial. Two long-standing observers have described him as 'the best prime minister Thailand has ever had' and 'another grubby businessman'. This is the first serious study of Thaksin in English. It examines where he comes from and what he is trying to do. The authors, an economics professor and independent author, have written several other books on economics, politics and current affairs in Thailand.

Divided Over Thaksin

Divided Over Thaksin PDF Author: N. John Funston
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
ISBN: 9812309616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
These 13 papers were selected from those given by senior analysts from Thailand and the region at the 2006 and 2007 seminars of the National Thai Studies Centre at the Australian National University. The Coup of 2006 and other turbulent events were more or less in progress during the seminars so some of the papers have the flavour of immediacy. Among the subjects addressed are: the Constitutions of 1997 and 2007 and their impacts; the policies, fall and possible future impact of Thaksin Shinawatra, Prime Minister 2001-2006; four papers are on aspects of the ongoing insurgency in Southern Thailand; and the final three papers focus on the economy with discussion of the impact of political uncertainty on business. With much tabulated data and index.

Divided Over Thaksin

Divided Over Thaksin PDF Author: John Funston
Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
ISBN: 9814459410
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Thailand's political problems attracted international attention when yellow shirted anti-Thaksin protestors closed down Bangkok's international airports in November 2008; the following April pro-Thaksin red shirts prevented an ASEAN-East Asia Summit, and clashed violently with the army in the streets of Bangkok. Conflict between groups for and against former Prime Minister Thaksin has polarized Thai society. Under his watch, violence also returned to the Malay Muslim south, with the loss of over 3,000 lives. The military coup that ousted Thaksin was supposed to end all this, but instead polarization increased and southern violence continued. This book is about how Thaksin divided Thailand, the nature of the southern conflict, and problematic attempts to establish a consensus around a post-Thaksin political order.

Thailand’s Political Peasants

Thailand’s Political Peasants PDF Author: Andrew Walker
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299288234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
When a populist movement elected Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister of Thailand in 2001, many of the country’s urban elite dismissed the outcome as just another symptom of rural corruption, a traditional patronage system dominated by local strongmen pressuring their neighbors through political bullying and vote-buying. In Thailand’s Political Peasants, however, Andrew Walker argues that the emergence of an entirely new socioeconomic dynamic has dramatically changed the relations of Thai peasants with the state, making them a political force to be reckoned with. Whereas their ancestors focused on subsistence, this generation of middle-income peasants seeks productive relationships with sources of state power, produces cash crops, and derives additional income through non-agricultural work. In the increasingly decentralized, disaggregated country, rural villagers and farmers have themselves become entrepreneurs and agents of the state at the local level, while the state has changed from an extractor of taxes to a supplier of subsidies and a patron of development projects. Thailand’s Political Peasants provides an original, provocative analysis that encourages an ethnographic rethinking of rural politics in rapidly developing countries. Drawing on six years of fieldwork in Ban Tiam, a rural village in northern Thailand, Walker shows how analyses of peasant politics that focus primarily on rebellion, resistance, and evasion are becoming less useful for understanding emergent forms of political society.

Giants of Asia: Conversations with Thaksin

Giants of Asia: Conversations with Thaksin PDF Author: Tom Plate
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd
ISBN: 9814382574
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Going home is an iconic theme of literature and music that touches everyone’s heart. Bur rarely has that journey looked more like an impossible dream than for Thaksin Shinawatra, the much loved and much hated former prime minister of Thailand. Expelled from the former Siam by a military coup in 2006, the cell-phone billionaire retreated to a dacha in Dubai to bide his time and plot his triumphant return.While in exile in Dubai, Thaksin tells his tale of triumph and betrayal to American journalist Tom Plate as well as his personal thoughts about poverty reduction, power politics, the future of democracy in Asia — and why he prefers to lose at golf. In this volume, Plate masterfully dissects the mogul who ran his country like a CEO until the tanks came to show who was boss.

Thaksin

Thaksin PDF Author: Pasuk Phongpaichit
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789749511794
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Summary: In the early 1990s, Thaksin Shinawatra came from nowhere to become a multi-billionaire in just four years. In 2001, he was elected prime minister on a single-minded promise to accelerate Thailand to first-world status. This title traces the rise and fall from power of Thailand's former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"Good Coup" Gone Bad

Author: Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
ISBN: 9814459607
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
What did the 2006 military coup show us? It demonstrated that the crux of the Thai crisis is far more serious and much wider in scope than had previously been thought. The monarchy is surely not a victim in the protracted conflict, but the root cause and continuing factor that has eroded Thai politics. The coup set in motion more prejudicial uses of the lèse-majesté law, and in the process, has led to more political prisoners. It has also shredded the military into several segments, turning generals into desperate royalists who continue to live off the monarchy in order to survive. Issues of violence in the Thai south and the Thai-Cambodian dispute became greatly intensified in the age of militarized politics. The coup also produced unique colour-coded politics and created crises of legitimacy. This book is a collection of essays that reflect developments in Thai politics in the post-coup period.

The King Never Smiles

The King Never Smiles PDF Author: Paul M. Handley
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300130597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. This book tells the unexpected story of his life and 60-year rule: how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha; and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political, autocratic, and even brutal. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king's youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skilful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Blasting apart the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley convincingly portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely-modified feudal dynasty. When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne after the still-unsolved shooting of his brother, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, crushing critics while attaining high status among his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch in the full light of the facts.