THAILAND: DEMOCRACY IN THE NON-WESTERN CULTURE
A STUDY OF THAILAND’S DEMOCRATIZATION DURING THE PREMIERSHIP OF THAKSIN SHINAWATRA
AND AFTER THE 2006 MILITARY COUP
THESIS
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master Degree from University of Groningen
By: Natasha Lystia Rumambi / S2713012
Address: Kraneweg 34A, 9718 JS, Groningen. Phone No.: 0626589911
Supervisor: dr. C.H. (Carel) Horstmeier
DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
FACULTY OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN
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DECLARATION BY CANDIDATE
I hereby declare that this thesis, “Thailand: Democracy in the Non-Western Culture. A Study of Thailand’s Democratization during the Premiership of Thaksin Shinawatra and after the 2006 Military Coup.” is my own work and my own effort and that it has not been accepted anywhere else for the award of any other degree or diploma. Where sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged.
Name : Natasha Lystia Rumambi
Signature :
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ABSTRACT
Democracy has been growing vastly as the majority of the governments in the world are already democratic, which makes it the most popular type of government. However, being the most popular does not mean that democracy is an ideal system for all, especially in the non-Western culture, where the prospect of genuine democracy remains uncertain. Thailand is one obvious example to learn about the prospect of democracy in a non-Western government. The country has been striving for democracy since 1932 and has adopted the physical elements of democracy, such as general election, multi-party system, and trias politica. However, Thailand does not have any normative elements of democracy that include freedom, equality, and civilian control of military since the country possesses hierarchy and military intervention as its traditional norms, which are apparently contradicting to democracy.
The differences of the normative elements between democracy and Thailand’s norms have significantly contributed to the failure of the democratization process in Thailand. These normative differences are what the thesis attempts to research through the period of Thaksin Shinawatra’s premiership. This thesis is conducted through literature review and in qualitative methodology by using constructivism as one of the mainstream IR approaches. From the analysis, it can be concluded that democracy is still being treated as foreign norm to the non-Western culture, like Thailand because it is contradicting to Thailand’s norms.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Highest praise to Jesus Christ for all His blessing and guidance, so that this master thesis can be completed well and hopefully, the author can also be graduated. This thesis made of the combination of effort and knowledge for the purpose of attaining Master Degree of International Relations and International Organizations from University of Groningen, the Netherlands,
The author also realizes that without the support and prayer from many people, this graduate study and thesis would not have been completed. Therefore, at this good opportunity, the author would like to acknowledge and give her respect and thank the following persons.
dr. C.H. (Carel) Horstmeier as the supervisor and adviser of this thesis. His time, patience, advice, support, and outstanding knowledge have been very helpful for the author to complete this thesis.
prof. dr. J.H. (Jaap) de Wilde, prof. dr. L.E. (Luis) Lobo-Guerrero, dr. C.L.B (Joris) Kocken, dr. R.L. (Ronald) Holzhacker, dr. B.A. (Benjamin) Herborth, dr. S. (Sami) Faltas, and drs. E (Erdogan) Aykaç as the lecturers of International Relations and International Organizations that have given valuable knowledge throughout this one year of the author’s graduate study.
Beloved family, mother, brother, and my late father for their endless love, prayer, and support. The author is nothing without them.
Last but not least, to all names that cannot be mentioned here one by one, the author extends her gratitude to every one of them.
The author acknowledges that this master thesis is not yet perfect because it still possesses many deficiencies. Therefore, any critics and inputs from readers are very welcomed for further improvement in the future. Thank you.
Groningen, August 2015
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration by Candidate ... i Abstract ... ii Acknowledgements ... iii Table of Contents ... iv List of Figures ... v List of Abbreviations ... vi Introduction ... 1
Research Question and Sub-Research Question ... 6
Chapter I Theoretical Framework and Methodology ... 7
I.1. Constructivism ... 7
II.2. Democracy ... 10
III.3. Norm-life Cycle ... 12
III.4. Norm Diffusion ... 15
Chapter II The Suitability of Western Democracy to Thailand’s Norms ... 19
II.1. Explaining Democracy ... 19
II.2. Explaining Thai-style Democracy ... 23
II.2.1. Thailand’s Buddhism against Western Democracy ... 24
II.2.2. Thailand’s Military Coup Culture against Western Democracy .... 29
Chapter III The Implementation of Western Democracy in Thailand under Thaksin Shinawatra’s Premiership ... 33
III.1. Thailand under Thaksin Shinawatra’s Premiership ... 33
III.2. Thai Conservatives’ Objections to Thaksin’s Premiership ... 40
III.3. The 2006 Military Coup and the Failure of Western Democracy ... 43
Chapter IV International Interference to the Democratization Process in Thailand after the 2006 Coup ... 46
IV.1. International Influence through Socialization Approach ... 46
IV.2. International Influence through Conditionality Approach ... 49
IV.3. Theoretical Challenge: Southeast Asia’s Norm of Non-Interference ... 51
Conclusion and Recommendation ... 55
v
LIST OF FIGURES
vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ACM = Air Chief Marshal
ASEAN = Association of Southeast Asia Nations
GDP = Gross Domestic Product
IO = International Organizations
MP = Members of Parliament
NGO = Non-Governmental Organizations
PAD = People’s Alliance for Democracy
PM = Prime Minister
SDF = Self-Defense Forces
TRT = Thai Rak Thai
UN = United Nations
US = United States
SME = Small and Medium Enterprises
1
INTRODUCTION
Since its introduction in the early modern era of the 19th century, democracy has become the most popular political ideology of the 21st century. Today, out of the 197 sovereign countries in the world, 154 of them can be called democratic, which means that 78% of the countries in the world are already democratic.1 The output is based on the physical features implementation, which means that 154 countries have implemented democracy as their type of government. The fact that democracy is on the move can be traced back to Samuel Huntington’s the Third Wave Democracy, which indicates the international democratization process came in three waves. The first wave began in the early 19th century, when there were 29 democracies in the world. The accession of Mussolini to power in Italy marked the reversal of the first wave in 1922 when the number of the world’s democracies had been reduced to 12, and this number of democracies lasted until 1942.2 The second wave began with the Allied victory in World War II in 1962 when the number of democracies had risen to 36, but then it had gone back to 30 between 1962 and the mid-1970s.3 However, since
1974, democracy's third wave has doubling the number of such society by adding approximately 30 new democracies.4
The growth of democracy in the world can also be seen through the Democracy Index, which is compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, part of the Economist newspaper, in 2006 with the latest update in 2014. According to the index, more than half of the world lives under a democracy of some form, while nearly a third of the world’s countries are still ruled by authoritarian regimes.5 However, many
authoritarian countries have started striving for democracy, most prominently illustrated by the spirit of democratization that have swept in the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen. Unfortunately, the democratization process has been failing in
1 https://www.cia.gov/Library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2128.html (retrieved on 14th April 2 Huntington, Samuel. 1991. “Democracy’s Third Wave.” Journal of Democracy Vol.2 No.2. p.12 3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
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most of the Arab countries as they have slid either into chaos and civil strife or back into a bleak and brutal era of military coups after trying to implement democracy. But it did not happen in Tunisia. After the toppling of its dictator in January 2011, Tunisia held its first ever directly elected president in 2014 that marked the final step of its transition to full democracy.6 Despite the fact that democracy might appear as a failure in most Arab countries, the attempt to democratization itself demonstrates how democracy is largely being seen and believed by the population as the best political system in Arab, a region that is dominantly comprised of authoritarian countries.
Years before the Arab Spring took place, the democratization wave had also spread to another region, particularly in Africa and Asia. South Africa can be regarded as an example of a successful democracy in Africa continent. After the black-majority rule throughout the apartheid political era in 1994, South Africa became a full democracy under the government of President Nelson Mandela. Since then, the country has successfully held five democratic elections in its 20-year-old democracy with the last election in 2014.7 As for Asia, unlike the Arab world, the region already has a critical mass of democracies since there has been a great swathe of democracy in Asia's east, from Japan in the north down to Indonesia in the south.8 Out of many Asian countries, South Korea and Indonesia can be examples of how authoritarian countries became democratic.
South Korea developed into a successful liberal democracy after it experienced a series of military dictatorships from the 1950s up until the 1980s.9 Since then, this new democratic government has regularly held free and competitive elections at all levels of its respective government.10 Both locally and nationally, the
heads of the executive branches and the members of the legislatures are chosen by citizens through regularly scheduled electoral contests. Now, South Korea is widely recognized as the most successful third-wave democracy in Asia since the country has gone from being the cradle and locus of developmental authoritarianism to a
6
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/24/tunisia-vote-president-democracy-beji-caid-essebsi-moncef-marzouki (retrieved on 14th April 2015)
7
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21564829-it-has-made-progress-becoming-full-democracy-1994-failure-leadership-means (retrieved on 14th April 2015)
8 http://www.economist.com/node/2611026 (retrieved on 14th April 2015)
9 http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/ks.html (retrieved on 14th
April 2015)
10 Shin, Chul Do and Yun Han Chu. 2003. “The Quality Democracy in South Korea and Taiwan.”
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progressing democracy.11 As for Indonesia, the country was under the authoritarian rule of Soeharto for 32 years, from 1966 until 1998. After the fall of Soeharto’s regime, Indonesia held the first presidential election in 1999 and that was also the last indirect president election because since 2004 the direct presidential elections has been taking place until the last one in 2014, making the country (in terms of population) the third-largest democracy in the world behind India and the United States.12 These contemporary events of democracy movements have been acclaimed by some analysts as the start of the fourth wave of democratization –– the continuation of Huntington’s Third Wave of Democracy, though prospects for genuine democracy in the non-Western world remain uncertain.
The popularity of democracy as the most chosen political ideology, however, does not mean that this system is ideal for all. When there are successful examples, there are also examples of how democracy is not really rooting, if it cannot be said as a failure, in some parts of our plural world. Not only in the Arab world, democracy is also found to be rather difficult to function properly in Asia in spite of the fact that number of democratic governance has massively intensified in the region. Thailand is an example of an Asian country where democracy is not rooting in a non-Western culture. Thailand is one of the most developed countries in Asia with its rapid growth of economy that makes the country the second biggest economy in Southeast Asia after Indonesia with a GDP growth of 7% for the last decades.13 The country is also regarded as a newly industrialized country with a growing middle class. Thailand has developed so successfully that the country might become the new Asian tiger after Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.14 Yet, the country’s future remains
uncertain when it comes to democracy. Thailand has been adopting a parliamentary system under the monarchy as the Head of State, which is similar to Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. However, unlike the latter examples, Thailand is not democratic since the country is always dominated with the unlimited power of the monarchy and the army in its politics, elements that indicate Thailand as an
11 Ibid.
12 http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/an-elegy-to-indonesian-democracy/ (retrieved on 14th April 2015) 13http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2014/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2013&ey=2018&scsm=
1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&pr1.x=49&pr1.y=10&c=578&s=NGDP_RPCH%2CNGDPD%2 CNGDPDPC%2CPPPGDP%2CPPPPC&grp=0&a= (retrieved on 24th March 2015)
14 Davis, Joe and Jorge Gonzales. 2003. “Scholarly Journal Articles about the Asian Tiger Economies
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authoritarian country instead of a democratic country.
Elections are frequent in Thailand, so are military coups. Since the revolution of 1932 that ended the absolute monarchy, the country has experienced 26 general elections and 12 military coups. The first coup took place in 1933; a year after the first election, and the latest coup was in 2014 that overthrew former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra after being in power for three years. Based on this fact, one can presume that the pattern in Thailand is that most elections are followed by military coups. The army with its repeated coups is de facto in charge in Thailand as it continuously overthrows Thailand’s democratic chosen government. The overthrow of Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 that administrated in 2001 is a famous example of such a coup. It is unfortunate because Thailand has followed the path of democracy since the 1930s, long before its neighbors in the region. Furthermore, the country also adopts physical features that democracy suggests such as general elections, multi-party system, and trias politica. However, the fact has shown that duration and physical implementation did not guarantee any successfulness of the democratization process in Thailand.
This leads to a deeper understanding that not only duration and physical features implementation, democracy also needs to be embraced normatively as Daniel Lynch, Associate Professor School of International Relations from University of Southern California, states, “Democratization is an inherently international process –– entailing a state’s acceptance of the constitutive norms of liberal-democratic global culture.”15 So, the acceptance of democratic norms is the most important requirement
for a successful democratization process. Unfortunately, it appears to be a difficult requirement for Thailand. The differences between Western-style democracy norms and Thailand’s norms have been considerably determining the country’s resistance, which becomes the main reason why the prospect of democracy remains unsure in the country. The general ideas of democracy that suggest freedom, equality, and civilian control over the military are contradicting the norms of Thailand that include hierarchy and the military intervention. Therefore, according to Thailand norms, democracy is being seen as a Western product that is ill-suited to Asian countries with its different cultures and historical traditions.
15 Daniel Lynch. 2006. “The (More Than) Half-Full Glass: Thailand’s Democracy in Comparative
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Not only norms, the democratization process in Thailand also associates with the country’s cultures. It is because cultures of a particular country considerably determine norms, so norms are cultural products. In the case of Thailand, there are two fundamental cultures, namely Thai Buddhism and Thai military coup culture. These cultures produce norms of hierarchy and the military intervention, which are deeply embedded in Thailand. Furthermore, the democratization process is not only involving cultures and norms; it is also containing the interference from outside the country. International interference in Thailand democratization process mainly came from Western actors who intended to socialize and to restore democracy in Thailand, especially after the 2006 coup. It was the first military coup after 15 years in 1991 and under the new People’s Constitution in 1997, which acclaimed as the landmark in Thai democratic constitutional reform. Due to the violation of the Constitution through such a coup, international interference magnified in Thailand with the purpose of restoring democracy in the country. The 2006 coup was treated as the
major setback of democracy in Thailand by the Western, which was why the UN
along with many governments interfered by condemning the coup and imposing influential foreign policies toward Thailand, in purpose to restore democracy. Although Thai elites and conservatives never treated Thaksin Shinawatra’s government as democratically elected. In response to the Western interference, Thailand adopted non-intervention norm that prevented any international interference on Thai domestic issues. This situation presents another example of norm differences between the West and Thailand.
All of these hypotheses about the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of democratization process in Thailand will be analyzed further in this master thesis through constructivism as the main approach. Constructivism is used because unlike other IR mainstream theories, it focuses on shared norms that affect a country’s political system. The theory, based on Alexander Wendt’s work, argues that the interests pursued by states are based on norms and values that define their social identity16 and represent the country’s conception of what is most suitable for her. Therefore, according to constructivism, norms do matter to understand international politics. It explains how and why Thailand largely considers democracy to be ill-suited to the country as it is a norm of the West that is different to Thailand’s norms
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Research Question and Sub-Research Questions
7 CHAPTER I
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND METHODOLOGY
I.1. Constructivism
The study of politics has included norms as influential elements for a long period of time. Philosophers as Aristotle and Plato were very concerned with norms and how they affect our behavior and ultimately the political system we live in.17 Nonetheless, many mainstream theories of International Relations fail to include these aspects. For example, theory like realism concentrates more on states’ security and material interests defined in terms of power and liberalism that highlights the economic interdependency of international actors. In the logic of these IR theories, shared or opposite norms are not important, which is why these mainstream IR theories cannot be applied in this thesis. On the other hand, constructivism principally seeks to demonstrate how core aspects of international relations are socially constructed, which means that they are given their form by an ongoing process of social practice and interaction.
Constructivism claims that norms and values represent states’ social identity and, therefore, become the basis to pursue their interests. In this context, norms do matter. Alexander Wendt, a famous constructivist, mentions two basic tenets of constructivism, which are “(1) the structures of human association are determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces, and (2) that the identities and interests of purposive actors are constructed by these shared ideas rather than given by nature."18 The first tenet represents an idealist approach to social life that places its emphasis on the sharing of ideas is social in a way that opposes materialist stress on biology, technology, or the environment.19 The second is a structuralist approach because of its emphasis on the emergent powers of social structures, which opposes the individualists’ view that social structures are reducible to individuals.20 Therefore, constructivism could be seen as a kind of “structural idealism”.21 As one can conclude from Wendt’s two tenets, constructivism is a structural idealism approach because it
17 Alex Tucnex. “Locke’s Political Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 9th November
2005. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/ (retrieved on 3rd July 2015)
18 Wendt, Alexander. 1999. “Social Theory of International Politics”. University Press. p.1 19 Ibid.
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comes from the shared ideas that represent one’s conception of what is most suitable for her or him. And further, the ideas are being socially structured until they are becoming norms in a community or a state.
Constructivists highlight the importance on the social construction of reality. According to them, human relations, including international relations, consist of thought and ideas and not essentially of material conditions of forces. Constructivism, therefore, rejects a one-sided material focus and argues that there are other more important elements that construct social relations. Alexander Wendt proposes three elements of social structures: “shared knowledge, material resources, and practices.”22 First, social structures are defined, in part, by shared understandings, expectations, or knowledge.23 It means that intersubjective quality is the thing that makes the structures “social”. Second, social structures include material resources like gold, tanks, or aid.24 These material resources are believed to have the ability at affecting social relations, in which the effects are shown to presuppose deeper social relations.25 These elements, according to Wendt, constitute the actors in a situation and the nature of their relationships, whether cooperative or conflictual. Consequently, constructivism also considers international politics as a process of interaction between agents (individuals, states, non-state actors) and the structures of their broader environment26 through a process of the mutual constitution between agents and structures, in which the interaction is shaped by the actors’ identities, and practices that are influenced by constantly changing normative institutional structures.
In order to further explain the process of interaction between the agents, constructivism also places its emphasis on identities. Identities, according to constructivism, are the basis of interests.27 Identities show us how a state identifies itself and others in the international system that determines how she will act and react to it. It means that the identity that a state assigns to itself can have several implications and, thus, affects how that state handles situations. This is in line with
22 Wendt, Alexander. 1992. “Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power
Politics.” International Organization, Vol. 46, No.2. p.373
23 Wendt, Alexander. 1995. “Constructing International Politics.” International Security, Vol. 20, No.1.
p.74
24 Ibid.
25 Mearsheimer, John. 1995. “The False Promise of International Relations.” International Security,
Vol. 19, No.3. p.43
26 Checkel, Jeffrey. 2008. “Constructivism and Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors,
Cases”. Oxford University Press. p. 72.
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Peter Berger’s argument that identities are inherently relational, “identity, with its appropriate attachments of psychological reality, is always identity within a specific, socially constructed world.”28 For instance, if states view themselves and are labeled
as imperial powers, they will be more open to taking over and controlling other nations despite the claim of sovereignty rights. All important aspects in constructivism such as ideas, norms, social identities, and social structures are the core aspects of this thesis’ analysis. That is why constructivism is vital to be implemented in this research.
Methodology
Both tenets about structural idealism of constructivism from Alexander Wendt’s will be further elaborated in analyzing the importance of Thailand’s shared knowledge and norms. In this case I will seek how Thai Buddhism and Thai military coup culture play the role as the shared ideas that affect the way Thailand perceives itself as well as its perspective on Western democracy norms. Likewise, the concept of Western democracy, especially its normative elements, will be implemented to seek the suitability of Western democracy to Thailand’s norms. Therefore, the part of constructivism as structural idealism approach and the normative elements of democracy will be used at answering the first sub-research question.
The claim of constructivism about the importance of norms in politics will be included to answer the second sub-research question through the real application of norms in Thailand. The author choses the period of Thaksin Shinawatra, started from his installation in 2001 until the overthrown of his government by the coup in 2006. It was chosen because the period obviously shows the implementation of both Western democracy norms and Thailand’s democracy norms. Thaksin brought a new kind of democracy that possessed the Western democracy norms to Thailand when the country had its domestic norms that are dissimilar to the Western democracy. Therefore, the central focus of the second sub-research question is about the ‘lifetime’ of the Western democracy in Thailand during the premiership of Thaksin Shinawatra. The theory of norm-life cycle from Finnemore and Sikkink will be used at explaining the Western democracy’s ‘lifetime’ process.
28 Berger, Peter. 1996. “Identity as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge.” European Journal of
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Likewise, the concept of identity and three elements of social structures in constructivism will be used to investigate the third sub-research question about international interference to the democratization process in Thailand. The interference will be sought from the period after the 2006 military coup, so the scope of limitation is different from the second sub-research question. I argue that the interference that mainly came from the Western to Thai democratization process is considerably related to their identity as the proponents of democracy, which is why the West interference to Thailand magnified following the coup that ousted Thaksin’s government. Moreover, elements of social structures in constructivism will explain the growing cooperation between Thailand and China. Unlike the Western, particularly the US, who interfered by condemning Thailand for the coup, China supported Thailand by honoring Thailand’s norm of non-interference. All of these will be further elaborated through the theory of norm diffusion, which will explain the approaches of the interference.
I.2. Democracy
In international politics, democracy is defined as the form of rule that literally means “rule of power of the people.”29 The pre-modern origin of democracy itself comes from the ancient Greek polis. In this modern era, there are two general debates about the value of democracy. Some people believe that democracy is a Universal value since there is no fixed form of democracy. The implementation of democracy is substantially based on each country’s culture, so democracy can be implemented anywhere. On the other side, democracy is seen as the product of the West; thus, the universality value of democracy is disregarded. The perception is largely derived from the Cold War period, when the East was perceived as communist while the West was perceived as liberal democratic, and since then democracy has been believed by many to be a product of the West.30 Nonetheless, as previously explained, democracy has been growing vastly in international politics. It is because ideologies and norms from the West, like democracy, have much more expansive potential than particularized and localized ideational frameworks.31
29 Lawson, Stephanie. 2008. “Democracy and the Problem of Cultural Relativism: Normative Issues for
International Politics.” Routledge: Global Society. p.259
30 Ibid. p.252
31 Finnemore, Martha. 1996. “Norms, Culture, and World Politics: Insight from Sociology’s
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The physical appearance of democracy can be easily observed from its modern representative form that is applied on most of today’s governments. It is the form where people in a country have the ultimate political authority through institutional arrangements, including constitutional provision for elections, judicial processes, parliaments, and multi-party system. Beyond this descriptive meaning of democracy, lies a distinct normative dimension that provides democracy with its basic justification. According to Democracy Barometer – a project combines the efforts of researchers from the University of Zurich and the Social Science Research Center Berlin that was developed within the framework of the NCCR (National Centre of Competence in Research) Democracy and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation – democracy rests on freedom, political equality, and control.32 No consensus exists to determine the normative dimension of democracy, but in theory, these normative principles of democracy remain, supposedly, essentially the same despite institutional, historical, and cultural differences.33 Yet, it might be different in the actual application. As previously explained, Thailand is a country in Asia region that has a very different historical and cultural backgrounds with the West. Therefore, there is a possibility that Thailand’s norms are fundamentally dissimilar to the Western norms of democracy, which determines the suitability between both norms.
Methodology
Based on these normative features of democracy that include freedom, political equality, and control, the author will seek to answer the first sub-research question about the suitability of Western democracy to Thailand’s domestic norms as to whether both norms are in harmony or contradicting to each other. The analysis will also include the claim from Wendt about the structural idealism approach of constructivism as it claims that international relations is not merely formed by material forces, but is also formed by norms.34 These norms come from the shared ideas of a country that represent its conception of what is most suitable. Therefore, the author will also include the perception of Thailand’s norms to Western democracy norms. If both norms appear to be in harmony, then it is certain that Thailand adopts
32 Bühlmann, Marc, Wolfgang Merkel, Lisa Müller and Berhard Weßels. 2011. “The Democracy
Barometer: A New Instrument to Measure the Quality of Democracy and its Potential for Comparative Analysis.” Palgrave Journals: European Consortium for Political Research. p.519
33 Lawson, op. cit., p.259
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the Western-style of democracy. On the other hand, if both are contradicting each other, it means that Thailand implements its own style of democracy that is based on the country’s norms, although it might be undemocratic according to the perception of Western democracy.
I.3. Norm-Life Cycle
Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, both are notable constructivists; define norms as “a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity.”35 The definition that has been given raises two questions: who defines the standard? and how many actors have to agree on something before it becomes a norm? These questions also appearing in regard the democratization process in Thailand. To explain this, the theory of norm-life cycle that was produced by both authors will be used. The theory states that norm influence is a three-stage-process, which is comprised of norm emergence, norm cascade, and norm internalization.
Figure 1: Norm-life cycle
Source: Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. ”International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization Vol.52 Issue.04. p.891
As shown in Figure 1, the first stage is “norm emergence”. After the norm successfully succeeds to emerge in an environment, it will go through the second stage or “norm cascade” as both authors termed –– it is a stage where the norm is being accepted and legitimated. Lastly, the third stage involves the process of internalization norm. There is a threshold or “tipping point” between the first two stages where a critical mass of relevant state actors adopts the norm and incorporates it to the domestic norm. This figure of the pattern is important to be understood for researchers because different social processes and logics of action may be involved at
35 Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. ”International Norm Dynamics and Political
13
different stages in a norm’s life cycle.36 As argued by both authors, change at each stage is characterized by different actors, motives, and mechanisms of influence.37 Stage 1: Origins or emergence of norms. “Norms do not appear out of thin air; they
are actively built by agents, who are also called as norm entrepreneurs, having strong notions about appropriate or desirable behavior in their community.”38
The stage begins when the so-called agents or norm entrepreneurs call attention to issues that in their belief are not appropriate.39 But norms never enter an empty space because they emerge in a normative framework and have to compete with existing norms and perceptions.40 And, this where an interesting point takes place. In order to challenge the existing logic of appropriateness, norm activists may need to act explicitly inappropriate.41 Furthermore, Finnemore and Sikkink also mention that in order to ensure the emergence of the norm, all norm entrepreneurs need some kind of organizational platform to promote their norms on the international level.42
Norm entrepreneurs can do the promotions of the norms by creating new platforms or using existing organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organizations, or any other International Organizations. Whatever the platform is, norm entrepreneurs need the help from any platforms or organizations in order to lobby and to get the support from state leaders to adopt their norms and to promote these toward other state leaders. Norm entrepreneurs alongside the platforms can provide such support for the norm to reach the “tipping point”, –– the stage when a critical mass of states has been persuaded to become norm leaders. It is very difficult to anticipate when the norm tipping will occur, but empirical evidence suggests that it rarely happens before 1/3 of the total states in the system adopt the norm.43
Stage 2: Norm cascade. When a sufficient number of states have been persuaded to
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second stage, namely a “norm cascade”. At this stage, norms are promoted in a socialization process that rewards conformity and punishes noncompliance. The socialization is more a kind of ‘peer pressure’ among nations and socialization; thus, the socialization is the dominant mechanism of a norm cascade.44 The states are sensitive to the reaction of the international community because it can affect their domestic legitimation and power. Therefore, they will likely to adopt the norms that are accepted within their specific structures, otherwise their domestic legitimation is at stake if they do not do so.
Stage 3: Norm internalization. Finally, if the last two processes are strong enough,
norms may become so deeply accepted into the social structure that they end up being taken for granted as the only appropriate type of behavior. This is what Finnemore and Sikkink call the internalization stage. Norms that have been internalized can be extremely powerful (because behavior according to the norm is not questioned) and also extremely hard to discern (because actors do not seriously consider or discuss whether to conform), so these norms are generally accepted without being challenged.45
Methodology
In this thesis, I will use and modify the norm-life cycle theory for the purpose of analyzing the democratization process in Thailand. Consequently, there are some changes that will be applied to theory, such as the changes in actors and scope. It is true that Finnemore and Sikkink talk about the emergence of such a norm internationally and not domestically, in the sense that it is not about the process of an international norm being incorporated domestically in a country, like the attempt to incorporate democracy in Thailand. However, I argue that just like how norm like feminism emerged and accepted internationally, democracy in Thailand is going through the same process and mechanism only with different actors in different scope and with different result. Hence, the theory can still be perfectly applied in this thesis, and I will observe to what stage the process takes place in Thailand by using the theory.
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As for the first stage, which is the norm emergence, I will seek how democracy as the norm emerged in Thailand brought by norm entrepreneur: in this case Thaksin Shinawatra through an organizational platform, which is the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) political party of Thailand that was organized by Thaksin. By looking at the current situation, I argue that the life cycle of Western democracy in Thailand could only go as far as to the tipping point, yet, it would be tipped back by the military coup. So, in other word, the democratization process in Thailand is failed due to constant rejection by Thailand’s government that is stemmed from the huge differences with Thailand’s domestic norms. My argument is also based on Finnemore and Sikkink’s statement that completion of the “life cycle” is not an inevitable process since many emergent norms fail to reach a tipping point.”46 In this particular case, the failure is defined as to democracy was tipped back once it reached the tipping point. I would like to prove my argument for the second sub-research question, which will be further analyzed and proven in the next chapter by using this norm-life cycle theory from Finnemore and Sikkink as well as the approach of constructivism.
I.4. Norm Diffusion
There is no clear definition to explain the theory of norm diffusion, but according to many classic theories like Rosenau’s “linkage politics,” diffusion is defined as “any recurring sequence of behavior that originates in one system and is reacted to in another.”47 It indicates that the diffusion process of a norm is a result from repetitive
behavior of the actors within one environment. The theory also underlines the fact that norm can spread widely from one place to another. Therefore, questions about norm diffusions in world politics are not simply about whether and how ideas matter, but also which and whose ideas matter.48
The theory will help answer at exploring the international interference that mainly came from the West to the democratization process in Thailand, which magnified following the 2006 coup. The 2006 coup not only ousted Thaksin Shinawatra, who was elected democratically, but it also ousted the Western-style
46 Ibid. p.895
47 Rosenau, James N. 1980. “Toward the Study of National-International Linkages.” In The Scientific
Study of Foreign Policy, ed. James N. Rosenau. London: Frances Printer. p.381
48 Acharya, Amitav. 2004. “How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and
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democracy that Thaksin applied during his premiership in Thailand. The interference from the West shows that their ideas of democracy were important to be applied and restored in Thailand, since they believe that their type of democracy is the best possible type of government that Thailand could adopt and not the type of democracy that is based on Thailand’s norms. Not to mention that democracy has become the global norm that shaped international structure, so based on the West’s understanding, Thailand should adopt it as well. The statement is based on the majority governments in the world that have already democratic, as previously explained.
In practice, norm diffusion theory can be implemented through two approaches: socialization and conditionality. Theories of international socialization are grounded in the classical definition of socialization, which is defined as a process of preference formation or change through inducing actors into the norms and rules of a given community.49 As for constructivists, consistent adherence that is based on the internalization of the new norms considerably affects the result of successful socialization. It means that norm diffusion process through socialization manner will be successful if the new norms can be internalized in a country. By adopting commonly agreed upon rules, socialization “implies that an agent switches from following a logic of consequence to a logic of appropriateness; this adoption is sustained over time and is quite independent of a particular structure of material incentives or sanctions.”50
Unlike socialization, the approach of conditionality is defined as conditions under which international financial institutions or international donors offer loans to countries as an international policy tool.51 Conditionality approach supporters argue
that, “international influences, such as pressures generated from political conditionality and internationally based norms and models, may actually change the course of domestic politics.”52 Furthermore, norm diffusion also requires the roles of actors because norm diffusion itself is a linear top-down and two-way process. The theory of norm diffusion has highlighted the role of a variety of actors as norm
49 Dawson, Richard and Kenneth Prewitt. 1968. “Political Socialization: An Analytic Study”. Boston:
Little Brown. p.70
50 Checkel, Jeffrey. 2005. “International Institutions and Socialization in Europe: Introduction and
Framework”. International Organization. p.804
51 Peshkopia, Ridvan. 2005. “The Limits of Conditionality”. Southeast European Politics Vol. 6, No. 1.
p. 45
52 Schmitz, Hans Peter and Katrin Sell. 1999. “International Factors in Processes of Political
Democratization: Toward a Theoretical Integration”. In Jean Grugel (ed), Democracy Without
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entrepreneurs who introduce and promote new international norms and lobby governments to adopt them.53 The theory that focuses on the role of actors is also
supported by the claim about identities from constructivism approach. As suggested by the approach, identity is the basis of interest as it shows us how a state identifies itself and others in the international system that determines how the country will act and react to it. The application can be seen through the democratization process in Thailand that was considerably interfered by the role of actors like Western countries, especially after the 2006 coup. Western countries are long known globally as the proponents of democracy. Consequently, for them, this identity provides them the rights and the basis of justification to democratize non-democratic countries, like Thailand.
Not only the claim of identities, the three elements of social structures from constructivism will also be used in this research. According to Wendt, three elements of shared understandings, material resources, and practices constitute the actors in a situation and the nature of their relationships, whether cooperative or conflictual.54 The implementation can also be seen from the role of China in Thailand democratization process. Later, the author finds out that the relationship between China and Thailand becomes more cooperative following the 2006 coup because of shared understandings, where China honored the sovereignty and the non-interference norm of Thailand. It shows by the action from China that still supported material resources in the form of military aid to Thailand with no strings attached. All of these brief explanations will be further elaborated in the following chapter.
Methodology
Henceforth, the claim of identity and the three elements of social structures from constructivism as well as the theory of norm diffusion will be very useful at answering the third sub-research question about the interference role from the Western countries towards the democratization process in Thailand following the 2006 military coup that ousted the government of Thaksin Shinawatra. This chapter will be focused on the means, which is done through the two approaches of socialization and conditionality, taken by the West to lobby Thailand’s government to
53 Shawki, Noha. 2011. “Global Norms, Local Implementation: How Are Global Norms Translated
Into Local Practice?” Globality Studies Journal Issue 26. p.1
54 Wendt, Alexander. 1992. “Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power
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19 CHAPTER II
THE SUITABILITY OF WESTERN DEMOCRACY TO THAILAND’S NORMS
“Democracy, good governance and modernity cannot be imported or imposed from outside a country.”55
Emile Lahoud, former Lebanese President
The most critical reason behind the effectiveness of democracy in Thailand comes from within Thailand. It is critical since it deals with the impressions and perceptions that Thailand norms have toward democracy. One can presume that Thailand may adopt democracy physically but not normatively as Thailand perceives the norms embedded in democracy as different norms with the country’s norms. This chapter aims at proving the statement by thoroughly analyzing the suitability between both norms; thus, this chapter aims at answering the first sub-research question. In order to produce better understanding, there are two sub-chapters that will be analyzed by using the concept of structural idealism of constructivism and the normative elements of democracy. The first part will observe the general kind of democracy alongside its normative features that, arguably, is affected by the Western influence. The second part will discuss Thailand’s domestic normative features as well as their impressions on Western’s democracy.
II.1. Explaining Democracy: its Features and Western proposition
Democracy, as we know it, is the name of a form of rule that literally means “rule or power of the people”. The pre-modern origin of democracy is commonly believed to lie in the ancient Greek polis, with the emergence of the notion that legitimate political power is not the preserve of a tyrant or monarch, an aristocracy or oligarchy, but lay in the hands of the demos or the people. Thereafter, democracy took a long time and many developments to emerge as a working system of governance, from the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 to the French and the American Revolutions in the 18th century until the widening of the franchise in Europe and North America in the 19th century.56 However, it was in the 20th century when the idea of democracy
55 Nafez Kawas. “Lahoud: Democracy and Good Governance Cannot be Imposed from Outside.” The
Daily Star Lebanon. 11th December 2013.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2003/Dec-11/25229-lahoud-democracy-good-governance-cannot-be-imposed-from-outside.ashx
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established as the universal form of government to which any nation is entitled57. Amartya Sen, an Indian economist and philosopher who won Nobel Prize Award in Economic Sciences in 1998, claims that democracy was among the great developments in the 20th century for its universality idea. However, despite its Universalist pretention, it has been asserted from many recent debates that democracy is itself attached very firmly to a specific cultural base, a base that is generally labeled “Western”. During the Cold War, the East was perceived as communist while the West was perceived as liberal democratic, and since then democracy has been believed by many to be a product of the West.58 A prominent feature of contemporary international debates about norms is that they are formulated in a way as to set up another grand dichotomy in place of the “ideologically” defined as the East/West division of the Cold War period.
The claim of democracy as a norm that is directly related to Western cultural connections makes an impression that democracy is a Western cultural product, thereby excluding possible non-Western connections.59 This labeling, thus, constructs an idea that the “West” is the sole historical purveyor of domestic norms. It means that democracy is viewed to carry out the interest as well as the identity of Western countries and, therefore, its universality idea is disregarded. Democracy is being placed in a Universalist form by the West and, therefore, assumed by the non-Western to be less culturally neutral. Beyond this, the institutions and outcomes reflect a certain ethic of political rule that is embodied in the word “democracy” itself and that receives little attention in revisionist treatments.60 Based on this debate, democracy as
the product of the Western’s culture holds an argument that any other culture is irrelevant when any society, according to their domestic norms, could construct a viable political system that suits them best instead of the Western’s proposed form of democracy.
On the other hand, some still consider democracy as a universal aspiration because of the belief that democracy also embraces cultural differences and is not attached only to Western culture. As George Bush and Tony Blair insist that, “It is a
57 Ibid.
58 Lawson, Stephanie. 2008. “Democracy and the Problem of Cultural Relativism: Normative Issues for
International Politics.” Routledge: Global Society. p.252 59 Ibid. p.257
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culturally rooted practice.”61, which implies that democracy can be applied anywhere based on each country’s culture since there is no fixed standard of democracy. Therefore, democracy can be implemented in any society regardless the differences on cultural or historical background. One of the most common approaches to define democracy is through its modern representative form. It is coming from a description of institutional arrangements, including constitutional provision for elections, judicial processes, parliaments, and multi-party system that we can find in most of today’s governments. These conventional provisions and procedures are the physical features of democracy that clearly reflect rule of law doctrines.62 More importantly, democracy also contains fundamental norms that, ideally, should be reflected through its physical form. Based on Democracy Barometer, which is organized by researchers from the University of Zurich and the Social Science Research Center Berlin, democracy rests on freedom, political equality, and control.63 One can assume these are the normative features of general democracy. The starting point is the premise that democratic system attempts to create a good balance between the normative, interdependent values of freedom and equality64 and it requires control for all
normative principles to be harmonically synchronized.
Freedom is one of the minimal conditions for democratic regimes that are applied by protecting and guaranteeing individual rights under a secure rule of law.65 It is strongly associated with the idea that every government acknowledges the sovereignty of their citizens. Historically, John Locke’s theory of property includes constitutional individual liberties that embrace the legal protection of life, freedom of opinion, and property rights. In the Two Treaties of Government, Locke opposed the claim that God had made all people subject to a monarch because he believed that men are by nature free and equal.66 Whereas functionally, individuals freedom can only be achieved in a government operating under the secure rule of law where the state is bound to follow the effective law and acts according to clearly defined
61
http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21596796-democracy-was-most-successful-political-idea-20th-century-why-has-it-run-trouble-and-what-can-be-do (retrieved on 8th July 2015)
62 Rule of law is the principle of which are antithetical to the exercise of arbitrary or personalized
political power as well as to violence as a means of grasping political power or settling political disputes.
63 Bühlmann, Marc, Wolfgang Merkel, Lisa Müller and Berhard Weßels. 2011. “The Democracy
Barometer: A New Instrument to Measure the Quality of Democracy and its Potential for Comparative Analysis.” Palgrave Journals: European Consortium for Political Research. p.519
64 Ibid.
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prerogatives.67 Therefore, the principle of freedom in democracy is guaranteed by important elements, such as individual liberties, rule of law, as well as an active and legally secured public sphere. Furthermore, freedom seems possible only where all citizens without exception have equally guaranteed political rights by the government. This leads us to the second principle of democracy, which is equality, or particularly called as political equality.
Political equality means that all citizens are treated as equals in the political process.68 Therefore, everyone must have equal access to political power. One can argue that it is a rather abstract principle of equality, but then it leads to a more concrete feature that can explain the process of democratic governance. The concrete feature of political equality is the full inclusion of all persons subject to the legislation of a democratic state.69 Henceforth, political equality aims at the equal consideration for all citizens’ interests and requires the capability of every government to accommodate it regardless of the subject of majority or minority. The equal consideration that every government can provide in order to develop a good democratic regime is by giving an equal chance on participation to all citizens. The failure to do so will harm the country’s democracy. As Arend Lijphart, a Research Professor of Political Science from University of California, claims, “Unequal treatment will heavily constrain the quality of a democratic system because the privileged voters are favored over underprivileged non-voters.”70 Consequently, the core challenges of a democratic system is guaranteeing and balancing freedom and equality of all citizens. And, in order to keep both normative principles in a dynamic balance, a further principle of the democratic rule is highly needed, which is control.
Control is not a simple auxiliary that balances the other two features, but it is also an important feature that makes an ideal democracy. It can be defined as the means for the citizens to hold their representative, whom they choose on elections, accountable and receptive.71 Without control, democracy may easily degenerate into oligarchy or dictatorship because then the government is free to do whatever pleases
67 Elster, Jon. 1998. “Consequences of Constitutional Choices.” Cambridge University Press:
Constitutionalism and Democracy. p.87
68 Saward, Michael. 1998. “The Terms of Democracy.” Cambridge: Polity Press. 69 Dahl, Robert. 1998. “On Democracy.” New Haven: Yale University Press. p.75
70 Lijphart, Arend. 1997. “Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma.” American
Political Science Review. p.7
71 Bühlmann, Marc, Wolfgang Merkel, Lisa Müller and Berhard Weßels. 2011. “The Democracy
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them without taking the citizens’ interests into account. In democracies, control is exercised by means of free, fair, and competitive elections.72 Any attempts of
vote-buying, corruption, and money politics in elections will degrade the quality of democracy. Likewise, control in democracy is not only limited to the understanding that people have power over their representative; it is also about civilian control. For democracy to function, civilian control is fundamental as it is often seen as a prerequisite feature of a stable democracy.73
It is important to note that civilian control in a democratic government is achieved through different means from the one used in an authoritarian government. If the military is an essential means to control the citizen in authoritarian countries, democratic countries require military to be under control of civilian official elected by the people. No decision or responsibility falls to military unless expressly or implicitly delegated to it by civilian leaders.74 Democratic countries see the military control over the citizen as an undemocratic means because, as suggested by Samuel Huntington, “military interference will diminish the effectiveness of military forces and, thus, a nation’s security.”75 Therefore, civilian control of the military is so
important that even in encouraging democratization, Western power like the US uses civilian control of the military as one measure of progress towards democratic process.76 These specific physical and normative features of democracy that have been discussed will be further analyzed to see whether these democratic elements are in harmony or contradictory with Thailand’s norms.
II.2. Explaining Thailand-style Democracy and its Features
The central focus of this research is not necessarily about finding whether there is democracy in Thailand or not, because there is democracy in the country. It can be seen from the country’s implementation of the form or physical features as Western democracy proposes. Thailand has been holding 26 regular elections since the country ended its absolute monarchy in 1932. There is a multi-party system in Thailand that has been continuing to evolve since the late 1980s.77 Another important thing is that the country also adopts trias politica as there are separated legislative,
72 Ibid. p.523
73 Kohn, Richard. 1997. “How Democracies Control the Military.” Journal of Democracy, Vol.8. p.140 74 Ibid. p.3
75 Ibid. p.3
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executive, and judicial with its own responsibilities and powers under the King as the Head of the State.78 Therefore, Thailand indeed has a functioning democracy,
although it is not a pure and a perfect form of democracy since the King’s presence still exists significantly in the country. The Democracy Index 2014 – an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit – categorizes Thailand as a hybrid regime for its mixture of democracy’s features and the reigning King.79 However, these physical features implementation of democracy is not enough to state that there is a genuine democracy in Thailand.
Democracy should not only be observed from its physical appearance. It is more important to observe normative features of democracy, especially when we would like to analyze the democratization process in a non-Western country as this thesis aims to research. As previously argued by Professor Daniel Lynch in the introduction chapter, “Democratization is an international process that entails a state’s acceptance of the constitutive norms of liberal-democratic.”80 Therefore the successfulness of the democratization process is significantly determined by a state’s acceptance of democratic norms. In the case for Thailand, one can argue that although Thailand demonstrates similar physical features that the Western democracy suggests, it does not guarantee that the country also exhibits similar normative features embedded in the Western democracy. It is because, as constructivism proposes that, each norm is different but equally important since it represents the culture and shared ideas that carry out countries’ identity as well as helps these countries to produce decisive actions about what is most suitable for them. And, in this research, different norms lead to different perceptions about the ideal democracy between the West and Thailand.
II.2.1. Thailand’s Buddhism against Western Democracy
The first culture of Thailand that has a substantial effect on the country’s perception about Western democracy is Thai Buddhism
.
Religion has been proven to have a significant influence on a state’s political system as Andrew Nathan, a Professor of78 http://www.thailandtoday.in.th/monarchy/elibrary/article/194 (retrieved on 29th June 2015) 79
http://www.eiu.com/Handlers/WhitepaperHandler.ashx?fi=Democracy-index-2014.pdf&mode=wp&campaignid=Democracy0115 (retrieved on 10th July 2015)
80 Daniel Lynch. 2006. “The (More Than) Half-Full Glass: Thailand’s Democracy in Comparative
