Explore the vast range of titles available.

From ceremonial spectacles to repressive laws, the Thai state has strategically utilized fear to assert its control over the populace and legitimize the ruling classes. Through the efforts of the monarchy, military and other influential forces, a climate of fear has been cultivated and disseminated to maintain the status quo. In Thai politics, fear is not just a byproduct of authoritarian rule, but rather a conscious and calculated tactic employed by those in power. This article examines the ways in which fear is created, perpetuated and upheld through both legal and cultural means, starting with King Bhumibol Adulyadej and continuing with King Vajiralongkorn. Drawing upon the concepts of cultural hegemony by Gramsci and the concept of the \"theatre state\" by Geertz, it sheds light on the utilization of fear as a means of exerting power in Thai society, reinforcing the monarchy's central role in maintaining political stability and social order.

This article argues that ritual remains a potent instrument for the generation of national identity and citizenship in Southeast Asia. We focus our analysis on the ritualisation of public space in Bangkok, Thailand, under the military-led government of General Prayut Chan-o-cha. The authors provide an ethnographic analysis of Sanam Luang, arguing that between 2016 and 2017 funeral rites held in this public space would reanimate it as a catalyst of national unification. As in other cases of ritual in public space, however, the intensified securitisation and control over national mourning for King Bhumibol by the military government, gave way to a range of reactions, including increased protests and criticism of the ruling government and Thailand's lesé-majesté laws by a predominantly youth-led movement in 2020.

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. The King Never Smiles, the first independent biography of Thailand's monarch, tells the unexpected story of Bhumibol's life and sixty-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 and autocratic. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king's youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skillful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Handley takes full note of Bhumibol's achievements in art, in sports and jazz, and he credits the king's lifelong dedication to rural development and the livelihoods of his poorest subjects. But, looking beyond the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley 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, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, silencing critics while winning the hearts and minds of his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch-his life, his thinking, and his ruling philosophy.

This article attempts to illuminate Duncan McCargo's influential yet ambiguous concept of ‘network monarchy’ — the source of political power wielded by Thailand's royalist establishment. Drawing on Thai-language primary sources, especially cremation volumes, I argue, first, that many individuals who have made up various institutional components of the network monarchy come from a constellation of traditional royalist families that have intermarried with each other. Contrary to what McCargo suggests, these people are not just bound by their devotion to the monarchy alone, but also by their families’ pervasive intermarriage ties forged over many decades. These ties have given the network monarchy additional resilience, even though not all its members toe the ideological line all the time. My second argument concerns the temporal context in which the network monarchy has come into being. Although McCargo makes it seem that the late King Bhumibol developed the network monarchy — his personal patronage network — as a political tool from scratch in the post-1973 period, it has actually grown, in part, out of the pre-existing elite family networks. I develop these twin arguments by using the case of one royalist prime minister — Anand Panyarachun — as a focal point of analysis.

The mother of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Princess Mother Sangwan, was the royal patron of the Thai Border Patrol Police (BPP) and an ardent supporter of its Cold War era civic action programmes. This article surveys the special relationship between the Princess Mother and the BPP and their development of royal projects among the highland minorities in northern Thailand to illuminate the implications of this collaboration for the spread of royalist nationalism and the evolving role of the monarchy from the 1960s to the present.

Our world is under pressure, with growing inequalities in wealth and access to food and clean water. We depend too heavily on polluting fuels and diminishing natural resources. Traditional cultural practices are being swamped by global popular culture.The Thai model of sufficiency thinking aims to transform the mindset of a whole population to achieve the seemingly impossible: enriching everyone's lives in a truly sustainable way.Innovative management practices developed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand have been applied across Thailand in agriculture, education, business, government and community organisations for over two decades.In this book, chapters written by eminent Thai scholars explain sufficiency thinking and review its implementation in different sectors including community development, business, agriculture, health care, schools, and even in prisons.Is Thailand unique in having discovered the holy grail of a more responsible form of capitalism? No, it is not, but it is the first country whose government has adopted this kind of thinking as national policy.'...we obviously need to revise dramatically our thinking about the outlines of a just economy and a decent society in which everyone can lead dignified lives. Sufficiency Thinking provides creative approaches to this quandary and this important volume is a brilliant addition to the growing literature critical of mainstream business-as-usual ideology.' - John Komlos, Professor Emeritus, University of Munich