Tears Behind the Microphone: The Strategic Use of Emotions by Opposition Parties in Thai Parliamentary Debates

Abstract

During the 2019–2023 Prayuth administration, tensions were high between establishment forces and progressive movements. This study examines how opposition parties strategically mobilised emotional rhetoric during the Thai parliamentary special session of 26–27 October 2020 to voice public sentiment and challenge the government's emotional regime. Linking the concepts of emotional regime and emotional emancipation with Emotional Discourse Analysis, the study analyses emotion markers used by 41 opposition MPs across 7 parties in parliamentary debates. Three strategies emerge: (1) blaming and delegitimising the government's emotional framing, (2) re-narrating dominant emotional discourses, and (3) proposing emotionally charged solutions to national crises. Through emotional discourses of love, loyalty, fear, hatred, and hope, MPs challenged state narratives and sought to advance alternative affective norms supportive of democratic agency. The findings demonstrate how emotional discourse functions as a site of political struggle in hybrid regimes, illuminating the affective dynamics underpinning Thailand's democratic transformation.

Keywords

Emotional discourse emotional emancipation emotional regime parliamentary debates Thai politics

Introduction

The Thai parliamentary special session held on 26–27 October 2020 unfolded amid dual crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, first detected on 13 January 2020 (World Health Organization, 2020), and youth-led protests erupted on 22 February 2020 after the Future Forward Party (FFP) was dissolved, seen by young Thais as a symbol of political renewal and hope (Lertchoosakul, 2021: 208; McCargo, 2021: 177; McCargo and Chattharakul, 2020). At the time, Thailand remained under the semi-authoritarian regime of General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, serving his second term following the 2014 coup and disputed 2019 election, considered a case of “competitive authoritarianism” (Sawasdee, 2019). Although the Pheu Thai Party secured the largest share of seats, Prayuth retained office through a military-backed coalition and 250 junta-appointed senators (McCargo, 2019; Ricks, 2019; Sawasdee, 2019). This manipulation of legal and electoral procedures deepened public disillusionment and intensified the divide between citizens yearning for freedom and elites attached to control.

Viewed through an emotional lens, the 2020 protests reflected both political demands and the release of long-suppressed emotions. Five years of military rule hollowed out accountability, transparency, and freedom of expression, restricting participation and deferring hope. When COVID-19 intensified economic precarity and social isolation, simmering emotions reached a breaking point (Lakchayaporn et al., 2021; Lertchoosakul, 2021; Sinpeng, 2021). As Verbalyte et al. (2022: 4) observed, crises bring buried emotions to the surface, compelling governments to either seek “emotional closure” or perpetuate an “emotional feedback loop”. The Prayuth administration chose the latter, resisting rather than addressing public sentiment. Measures under the 2005 Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situations, including lockdowns, curfews, and protest restrictions, may have been legitimate pandemic responses; however, they also enabled greater centralisation of state power (Bangkok Post, 2020a; Boossabong and Chamchong, 2020: 358; iLaw, 2021).

As these crises deepened, emotional tensions intensified across society, and by August 2020, demonstrators had consolidated around three demands: the prime minister's resignation, a new constitution, and reform of the monarchy (Phaholtap and Streckfuss, 2020). Tensions peaked on 14 October 2020, when demonstrators raised the three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance, towards a royal motorcade carrying the Queen and Prince, breaking a longstanding taboo (BBC News, 2020a). The government responded by declaring a “severe state of emergency” and dispersing protesters using water cannons, escalating the confrontation (BBC News, 2020b; The Diplomat, 2020).

Following these tensions, the Cabinet convened a special parliamentary session to address the escalating crisis (Bangkok Post, 2020b). In a formal letter, the prime minister justified the meeting by citing public health risks from mass gatherings, disruption of the royal motorcade, and the need to reclaim public space through force amid fears that continued unrest could trigger civil disorder (Secretariat of the House of Representatives [SHR], 2020a: 1–3). Opposition parties, however, dismissed these claims as attempts to whitewash state repression, warning that condemning protesters without addressing their grievances would not produce a meaningful resolution (Prachachat, 2020).

With protest leaders arrested and media censored, the October 2020 debates became one of the few remaining spaces where suppressed emotions could be voiced publicly. Opposition members of parliament (MPs), primarily from Pheu Thai and the Move Forward Party (MFP), which succeeded the dissolved FFP, acted as conduits of public sentiment, articulating and strategically mobilising emotions within parliamentary discourse.

Despite growing international scholarship on emotions in parliamentary politics, no study has examined emotional discourse in Thai parliamentary debates. Existing research, largely from advanced democracies, demonstrates that emotional rhetoric in parliament functions both as an instrument of power and a mode of resistance (Abercrombie and Batista-Navarro, 2020; Alcaide Lara et al., 2016; Gennaro and Ash, 2021; Sánchez Salgado, 2021; Subtil and Verger, 2024; Valentim and Widmann, 2023; Werlen et al., 2021; Yildirim, 2024). In the Thai context, studies of political emotions have focused primarily on state ideology and street-level movements (Bowie, 1997; Chachavalpongpun, 2022; Jarernpanit, 2018; Meesuk, 2017; Pawakapan, 2015; Sopranzetti, 2024; Winichakul, 2020), leaving the parliamentary sphere, where ideology, contestation, and emotion intersect, largely unexplored.

This study addresses this gap by examining how opposition MPs strategically employed emotions during the October 2020 debates to voice public sentiment, challenge the semi-authoritarian regime, and foreground emotion as both a micro-lens revealing hidden political dynamics and a central dimension of power, offering new insight into Thailand's enduring authoritarian resilience and cycles of affective contestation.

Theoretical Framework: Emotional Discourse, Regimes, and Emancipation in Parliamentary Debates

To address the research question, this study developed a theoretical framework integrating emotional discourse in parliamentary debates with the concepts of emotional regimes and emotional emancipation, using parliamentary discourse as the empirical entry point to examine how emotions are articulated and contested in parliamentary speeches. Emotional regimes and emotional emancipation functioned as macro-level analytical lenses, situating these practices within Thailand's 2020 socio-political context, during tensions between an entrenched top-down emotional regime and rising bottom-up pressures for emotional emancipation.

Emotional Discourse in Parliamentary Debates

In this study, emotions were conceptualised as discursive and intersubjective practices articulated through language and interaction within parliamentary debates, a key arena in which political power is negotiated and redefined (Koschut et al., 2017; Sánchez Salgado, 2024: 400; Hanley-Smith and Richardson, 2023: 2; Osnabrügge et al., 2021; Sánchez Salgado, 2021; Subtil and Verger, 2024). Emotions serve as rhetorical tools to reinforce claims, discredit political opponents, and construct moral or political identities that resonate with audiences (Alcaide et al., 2016: 130). The expression and intensity of emotions vary across contexts, shaped by macro-level crises, ideological polarisation, issue framing, parliamentary rules, and power hierarchies (Gennaro and Ash, 2021; Osnabrϋgge et al., 2021; Verbalyte et al., 2022; Werlen et al., 2021; Widmann, 2021; Yildirim, 2024).

Analytically, the study adopted Sánchez Salgado's (2024: 411) framework, integrating macro-level approaches on power-status relations (social structure) and feeling rules (social norms) with a micro-level, actor-agency perspective examining affective strategies within parliamentary debate (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Theoretical Framework. Source: Author's Adaptation Based on Sánchez Salgado (2024), Reddy (2001), Bargetz (2015), Grills et al. (2016), and Wouters (2012).

At the macro level, power-status relations and institutionalised feeling rules constitute key sources of affective pressure, shaping expectations through socio-cultural institutions, shared repertoires, and established regimes of emotional knowledge, of which emotions can legitimately be expressed, by whom, and how (Sánchez Salgado, 2024: 405). At the micro level, political actors deploy affective strategies as purposeful practices, with governing elites favouring emotional restraint, reassurance, or credit-claiming, and opposition actors employing blaming, shaming, fearmongering, or alternative feeling rules challenging dominant emotional norms (Sánchez Salgado, 2024: 408).

These levels are mutually constitutive: affective strategies enacted in debate both draw upon and reshape feeling rules and power relations (Sánchez Salgado, 2024: 407–408). The framework allows the study to examine how opposition MPs deploy emotional discourses as both strategic parliamentary interventions and challenges to established social structures, while capturing broader emotional conditions within the concepts of emotional regimes and emotional emancipation as macro-level analytical lenses.

Emotional Regimes and Emotional Emancipation

Drawing on Reddy's (2001: 129) foundational work, an emotional regime is a “set of normative emotions and the official rituals, practices, and emotives that express and inculcate them; a necessary underpinning of any stable political regime.” Emotional regimes do not merely display emotions but actively teach, discipline, and embed them into everyday habits, sustaining political stability by privileging emotions that legitimise authority while suppressing those that challenge it (Sánchez Salgado, 2021: 510). As Reddy (2001: 125–126) explains, strict emotional regimes stabilise power by prescribing acceptable emotions and penalising deviation. Individuals are expected to perform “normative utterances” – respect for a father, love for a god or king, loyalty to an army – and those who refuse face sanctions. Fear of punishment compels outward conformity, leading individuals to internalise prescribed emotions and often mistake performance for sincerity (Reddy, 2001: 124). In this way, such regimes restrict the capacity for doubt, reorientation, and change, trading emotional authenticity for political control.

Yet emotional regimes cannot indefinitely constrain emotional life. Emotions are both internal states, rooted in bodily and psychological experience, and external performances shaped by cultural norms and social expectations (Athanasiou et al., 2008; Bericat, 2016: 494; Czarniawska, 2015: 68–69; Loseke, 2009: 499; Sánchez Salgado, 2021: 410). When the gap between inner feeling and outward display widens, emotional dissonance intensifies, undermining individual well-being (Hochschild, 1983) and, when experienced collectively, creating conditions for protest and disruption (Goodwin et al., 2001: 16; Gould, 2009). Tightly policed emotional orders thus often generate counter-emotional cultures valuing authenticity and sincerity, providing resources for resistance (Hanley-Smith and Richardson, 2023: 4–5; Reddy, 2001: 172).

This dynamic is captured by the concept of emotional emancipation, understood as efforts to break free from imposed emotional constraints, occurring when previously denied or repressed emotions regain legitimacy and become socially acceptable (Wouters, 2012). Grills et al. (2016: 333) described this as “freedom from the lie,” while Bargetz (2015) emphasised how emancipation reveals how the emotional mechanisms of power operate, revealing how exclusion is effectively produced and individuals disciplined into conformity. Emotional emancipation thus reconfigures hierarchies, expanding the boundaries of emotional legitimacy, with emotional regimes constituting the dominant emotional environment and emancipation emerging as a contested process within and against it (Bargetz, 2015; Kolasi, 2019).

Arguably, Thailand's political landscape in 2020 reflects this tension precisely: long-standing emotional norms were increasingly challenged by actors demanding emotional autonomy, pressures that surfaced both outside and inside parliament. In Thailand's semi-authoritarian context – where parliamentary form masks military power – this framework was used to analyse how opposition MPs strategically mobilised emotions in an attempt to emancipate themselves from the dominant emotional regime. Parliamentary emotional discourse thus became a key arena of contestation through which the boundaries of emotional legitimacy and political transformation were negotiated.

Emotional Regimes and Emotional Emancipation in Thai Politics

The tension between emotional regimes and emotional emancipation did not suddenly surface in 2020; it stemmed from deep-seated affective structures that have shaped Thai political culture for centuries. Tracing how fear, love, loyalty, and hope have been cultivated helps explain why the October 2020 debates became such a charged site of affective contestation.

Established Emotional Regime

Thailand's emotional regime, rooted in Theravada Buddhist and Hindu cosmologies, has historically structured political authority through affective hierarchies of reverence, fear, and compassion (Jarernpanit, 2018: 720; Skilling, 2007: 186). While Hindu traditions sanctify kingship through divine fear, Buddhist ethics legitimise it through compassion, portraying rulers as Bodhisattas who accumulate merit and wisdom (Chantornvong and Samudavanija, 1980: 209; Jory, 2016; Sopranzetti, 2024). Leadership thus balances amnat or phra det (coercive power) and barami or phra khun (righteous moral authority and virtue), combining command with benevolence (Chachavalpongpun, 2022: 363; Sopranzetti, 2020: 58).

Although Buddhism advocates universal loving-kindness, love and loyalty in Thai political culture have been conditioned by entrenched paternalistic and hierarchical structures: rulers protect, while subjects are expected to display obedience and deference – often accompanied by fear and shame (Chachavalpongpun, 2022; Sattayanurak, 2002: 105–106; Sopranzetti, 2024: 208–211). As in many societies, emotions circulate through what Bericat (2016: 503) termed “downward hierarchies”. In Thailand, strict social hierarchies require subordinates to internalise emotional cues from elites while suppressing their own, reinforcing emotional inequality and allowing unchecked elite impulses to direct social norms.

Within this hierarchical emotional landscape, the narrative of khon di (good people), traditionally grounded in Buddhist moral ideals, has become a central politico-moral foundation of elite authority. It links hierarchical social and political order to righteousness derived from merit and virtue, with the king positioned as the most morally virtuous figure (Jarernpanit, 2018; Jory, 2015; Sopranzetti, 2024; Unno, 2025: 305). Over time, ruling elites institutionalised khon di as an idealised and ambiguous moral framework that regulates both conduct and emotional expression. To be recognised as khon di requires the performance of prescribed positive emotions, such as love, loyalty, and gratitude, particularly towards hierarchical superiors, regardless of one's inner emotional experience. This produces what Reddy (2001: 124) termed “induced goal conflict” and generates chronic fear, anxiety, and emotional dissonance among both conformists and dissenters.

Politically, this emotional regime has clear consequences. In the Thai context, moral claims associated with khon di often override the rule of law, as ruling elites define who counts as “good people” and recognise as legitimate only those who conform cognitively and emotionally to prescribed moral narratives, rendering others politically suspect or illegitimate (Satitniramai and Unno, 2017). Military coups have often been justified as moral interventions by “good people,” portraying unelected bureaucratic and military elites as ethically superior and therefore more fit to rule than allegedly corrupt elected politicians (Chachavalpongpun, 2014; Lavankura, 2021). Political legitimacy thus rests not only on institutional authority but also on emotional conformity.

During the Cold War, military and bureaucratic elites intensified this affective order. Under Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1957–1963), love and fear were systematically instrumentalised to legitimise authority and instil obedience (Chaloemtiarana, 2007; Jarernpanit, 2018: 722; Sopranzetti, 2020). Nationalist and anti-communist narratives cultivated fear of internal and external enemies while glorifying love of nation, loyalty to the king, and compassion as hallmarks of a “good Buddhist”. Embedded through rituals, education, and everyday practices, these emotional norms transformed moral virtues into instruments of control: compliance was rewarded with belonging and dissent with exclusion.

Over time, generations socialised under this order internalised these sentiments not through coercion alone but through cultural habituation, rendering them emotionally “natural” and morally correct. Upon externalisation as a social expectation, this affective identification obscured democratic sensibilities that people may otherwise have held; liberty, dissent, and critique were recast as deviations from established norms, indeed, as “foreign” or “non-Thai” (Lertchoosakul, 2023). With limited space for emotional autonomy or diversity, these Cold War emotional scripts, particularly fear and shame tied to punishment and deviation, continue to underpin Thailand's authoritarian resilience by legitimating the old and discouraging the new.

Emotional Emancipation in Thai Politics

In tightly controlled regimes like Thailand, citizens’ genuine emotions are often suppressed beneath layers of social compliance; yet when repression becomes intolerable, these emotions resurface as anger or defiance (Scheff, 1994). The student movements of the 1970s, the Black May uprising of 1992, the Red-Yellow conflicts of the 2000s, and the youth-led protests of 2020–2021 each marked moments when long-suppressed emotions broke through the constraints of the emotional regime. Throughout modern history, protest movements have functioned not only as demands for reform but also as acts of emotional emancipation. Scholars note that collective protest can transform fear, anxiety, and shame into hope, pride, and empowerment (Gould, 2009; Hoggett, 2009; Jasper, 2011: 291). In Thailand, however, such emotional outpourings have routinely been met with state violence and legal suppression (Lertchoosakul, 2023). Yet repression does not eliminate emotion; it only drives it underground, where it remains unresolved and becomes prone to resurgence (Reddy, 2001: 475; Szanto and Osler, 2022).

From the late 1980s onward, globalisation reshaped Thailand's emotional-political landscape. Under Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan (1988–1991), “money politics” replaced Cold War-era nationalism with clientelism, binding loyalty to material gain (Chachavalpongpun, 2022; McCargo and Chattharakul, 2020: 3; Sawasdee, 2006: 87). As business elites and local patrons rose, traditional power holders developed latent insecurities – fears of irrelevance and loss of control – contributing to the 1991 coup and 1992 uprising (Winichakul, 2020).

Globalisation also generated widespread “ontological insecurities”: nostalgia for a stable past and anxiety about an uncertain future (Bonansinga, 2020: 92–99). These emotions crystallised during Thaksin Shinawatra's rise (2001–2006), which embodied competing hopes and fears. For the rural poor, Thaksin symbolised empowerment and recognition; for traditional elites and the Bangkok middle class, he evoked moral decline and disorder, threatening established hierarchies (Gadavanij, 2020: 57). The result was deep affective polarisation (2006–2014): Red Shirts channelled frustration and anger over structural inequality, while Yellow Shirts expressed moral outrage in defence of monarchy and virtue. Each camp forged solidarity through shared emotions while projecting resentment onto the other (Jarernpanit, 2018: 718, 724; Pawakapan, 2015; Thaksapibool, 2019: 271), revealing how common structural anxieties were internalised, interpreted, and narrated differently across groups (Bonansinga, 2020; Iyengar et al., 2012).

Despite these conflicts, Thaksin did not disrupt Thailand's underlying emotional foundations. He drew on familiar emotional scripts, positioning himself as a modern patron who exchanged material benefits delivered through populist policies for personal loyalty (Gadavanij, 2020: 56–57; McCargo and Pathmanand, 2005). His Thai Rak Thai party, literally “Thais love Thais,” fused nationalist sentiment with the emotional discourse of love, echoing Cold War repertoires (Buchanan, 2013: 64). This represented not transformation but reproduction: the actors changed, yet the affective logic of power persisted.

Arguably, in Thailand, emotional regimes outlast structural or leadership shifts. Leaders, whether military or civilian, repeatedly and often unconsciously reproduce the same emotional mechanisms of power, blending love, loyalty, fear, and shame to secure attachment and conformity. These affective hierarchies sustain patron–client relationships extending from the monarchical period to the modern bureaucracy and everyday life, cascading down into the family unit (Chachavalpongpun, 2022; Chaloemtiarana, 2007: 60; Gadavanij, 2020; Sattayanurak, 2002: 106; Sinpeng, 2025). Because these “feeling rules” are deeply absorbed, they operate through a mix of instinct, conditioning, and strategic intent, enabling hierarchical emotional patterns to endure.

Viewed through an emotional lens, such persistence is unsurprising: emotions “stick” to bodies, institutions, and narratives, and when left unexamined, can pass through generations. Though often invisible, they permeate political climates, interpersonal atmospheres, and embodied experiences, sweeping individuals and institutions into long-standing affective currents (Ahmed, 2014: 4–5, 12; Reddy, 2001: 475). Breaking these cycles requires emotional recognition through social reflexivity and the repair of damaged social bonds (Scheff, 1994; Wouters, 2012). Yet the Thai state has never developed the capacity to navigate or process the deeper affective layers of political tension. Doing so would require confronting emotions repressed for generations and unsettling the emotional order that sustains its legitimacy. Instead, the state repeatedly returns to inherited emotional scripts that have long defined Thai politics. The 2014 military coup re-established this paternalistic “comfort zone,” governing once again through the politics of fear and loyalty.

For generations, Thais have borne the weight of emotional conformity: love and loyalty were internalised as duty, grievances were silenced, and fear and shame were pushed into the deepest layers of the self, together forming a quiet emotional prison. Without what Reddy (2001: 129) called an “emotional refuge,” few had safe spaces for authentic expression, learning instead to mask pain with a smile and bury counter-emotional impulses within both personal memory and shared cultural trauma (Alexander, 2012: 3). However, such silence could not last forever.

Generation Z, raised in a globally connected world, refused to inherit a system built on fear, deception, and denial. The FFP, and later the MFP, offered renewed hope, energy, and a bold political alternative (McCargo and Chattharakul, 2020: 73, 89). When the FFP was dissolved in 2020, emotions erupted onto the streets and online (Lertchoosakul, 2021; Sinpeng, 2021). Youth protesters fought not only for justice but also for the right to feel: to express pain, anger, and hope without fear. They mourned not only for their own futures but also for generations silenced before them. While their elders had been taught to suppress emotion, they screamed, laughed, cried, and memed in defiance (Ladia, 2022: 122; Lertchoosakul, 2021: 4; McCargo, 2021).

Despite the coup's lingering suppression, a cultural shift was underway. Digital culture enabled new forms of emotional authenticity, autonomy, and diversity. Online platforms reframed political frustration through satire and humour, eroding norms of deference. Long-suppressed emotions of fear, guilt, shame, and resentment resurfaced and were re-narrated through new affective styles across both online and public spaces (Chuenpittayatorn, 2019: 283; Ladia, 2022: 107).

The youth-led mobilisation of 2020 marked a decisive confrontation between Thailand's dominant emotional regime and an emergent emotional orientation demanding autonomy, authenticity, and the right to doubt. The scale, intensity, and directness of emotional expression during this period exposed the limits of established affective control.

Accordingly, this study focuses on the October 2020 debates because they constituted the first joint parliamentary session under Prayuth's government convened explicitly in response to mass protest rather than routine legislative business. Taking place in an unusually polarised parliamentary setting, the session rendered emotional norms exceptionally visible and openly contested, thereby offering distinctive analytical insight into the operation and contestation of Thailand's emotional regime within parliament.

Although situated in 2020, the significance of these debates extends beyond that moment. The demands for emotional freedom articulated during this period have continued to shape Thai politics and society, particularly by fostering forms of self-actualising citizenship among younger people (Lertchoosakul, 2024). These developments have exerted sustained pressure on the dominant emotional regime, contributing to a more complex and contested political landscape in which established affective norms are no longer reproduced unquestioningly. This case was therefore selected not because it resolved these tensions but because it marked an early institutional moment in which long-suppressed and emotionally charged claims, originating among youth protesters outside parliament, were formally articulated within a parliamentary arena.

Methodology

This study employed Emotional Discourse Analysis (EDA) to examine how opposition MPs discussed and strategically mobilised emotions during the October 2020 parliamentary session (Koschut, 2018: 277). EDA provides analytical tools for tracing how actors negotiate the boundaries of the emotional regime and attempt to carve out spaces of emotional emancipation within parliamentary discourse. The analysis followed three steps: (1) selecting texts, (2) mapping emotion keywords, and (3) contextualising their political effects (Koschut, 2018; Sánchez Salgado, 2021: 516–517).

The primary data consisted of verbatim parliamentary transcripts from 26 October (303 pages) (SHR, 2020a) and 27 October (346 pages) (SHR, 2020b), complemented by YouTube broadcasts (Thairath Online, 2020a, 2020b). The analysis focused on the contributions of 41 opposition MPs from 7 political parties,¹ who collectively spoke for 8 h. They were examined in relation to the broader debate context, which included approximately 15 h of speeches by government MPs, senators, and cabinet members (around 5 h each), as well as 2 h chaired by the president of the National Assembly, amounting to 25 h of parliamentary debate in total (Thai PBS, 2020).

Using ATLAS.ti, I coded explicit emotion markers: nouns, adjectives, and verbs associated with core emotions such as love, loyalty, fear, and hope.² The coding framework comprised three categories: (1) emotions, (2) topics, and (3) strategies. I drew on Sánchez Salgado's (2021: 516–517) model of emotional strategies in European debates and Gennaro and Ash's (2021: 1049) analysis of U.S. congressional discourse (see Figure 2). This was complemented by close reading to trace emotional structures and interpret their contextual significance (Koschut, 2018: 284). Because emotional discourse is inherently relational – articulated through expressions such as “I/we feel,” “you feel,” or “they feel” – the analysis also examined how emotions were positioned in relation to the speaker (opposition MPs), audience (government side), and third parties (the public and youth). This framework enabled the analysis to identify the dominant emotional patterns and strategic uses of emotion in the parliamentary session.

Figure 2.

Coding Framework. Source: Developed from Gennaro and Ash (2021) and Sánchez Salgado (2021).

Findings

The analysis showed that opposition MPs employed nine emotions across eight dominant themes to construct their rhetorical strategies (see Figure 3). Love, loyalty, fear, and hope dominated, accounting for over 73% of emotional references. More confrontational or vulnerable emotions, such as hatred, anxiety, anger, grievances, and pride, appeared far less often. This scarcity does not indicate that such emotions were irrelevant; rather, they were constrained by the norms of parliamentary expression (Sánchez Salgado, 2021). These emotions functioned not as expressions of MPs’ inner states but as strategic resources to challenge government narratives and reframe emotional meanings. For instance, love and loyalty were often invoked to criticise the government's monopolisation of these sentiments as markers of political legitimacy.

Figure 3.

Emotions and Topics in Parliamentary Debates. Source: Author's Calculations Based on Data from the Secretariat of the House of Representatives (2020a, 2020b).

On the topical side, the most emotionally charged issues were the monarchy, youth-led protests, the parliamentary motion, and calls for the prime minister's resignation. This focus marks a significant shift in Thai parliamentary discourse: formerly taboo subjects, particularly the monarchy, not only entered formal debate but carried emotional weight, reflecting the sentiments and demands voiced in the streets.

Taken together, these findings illustrate how opposition MPs strategically mobilised emotions during a period of crisis and mass mobilisation, generating narratives that turned parliament into an arena of affective and political contestation. Three strategic uses emerged: (1) blaming and delegitimising the government's emotional framing (63%), (2) re-narrating dominant emotional discourses (22%), and (3) proposing solutions to national crises (15%) (see Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Strategic Use of Emotions by Opposition Parties. Source: Author's Calculations Based on Data from the Secretariat of the House of Representatives (2020a, 2020b).

Strategy 1: Blaming and Delegitimising the Government's Emotional Framing

Regarding blaming and delegitimising the government's emotional framing, four dominant emotional narratives emerged, ranked by frequency in opposition speeches: love (28 instances), fear (25), loyalty (18), and hatred (16). Other emotions appeared less frequently, including hope (15), anxiety (14), anger (5), grievances (5), and pride (3).

In this study, blaming was coded when opposition MPs attributed responsibility to harmful government conduct, including repression, fear-mongering, mismanagement, or violence, often accompanied by calls for accountability or the resignation of the prime minister.

In contrast, delegitimising emotional framing was coded when opposition MPs explicitly challenged the government's moral authority to define, monopolise, or weaponise emotions such as love, loyalty, fear, or hatred as legitimate foundations of political rule. This included rejecting state claims to exclusive loyalty, or reframing hatred as a state-manufactured tool of division. While these strategies often co-occurred in parliamentary speeches, they operated at distinct analytical levels: blaming targeted government conduct, whereas delegitimising operated at a deeper level by unsettling the emotional norms and feeling rules that underpin Thailand's semi-authoritarian legitimacy.

Love and Loyalty: You Love and Are Loyal to the King, Just Like the People—Why Divide Them?

Love and loyalty have long functioned as normative emotions underpinning Thai governance, inculcated as markers of national identity. Yet these sentiments have also been politically constructed and selectively mobilised by ruling elites to suppress dissent and discredit those who fail to perform them in prescribed ways. As Ahmed (2014: 51–52) observed, love can conceal hatred, and both operate as political tools for drawing boundaries between “us” and “others.” In the Thai political context, invocations of love and loyalty often carry an implicit hostility towards those deemed insufficiently loyal or ideologically divergent.

During the October 2020 debates, opposition parties moved beyond blaming government conduct to explicitly delegitimise the government's emotional framing of love and loyalty. Opposition MPs argued that state claims to exclusive loyalty were emotionally coercive, mobilising love and loyalty to invalidate dissent by equating criticism with disloyalty to the monarchy. In rejecting these “loyalty contests,” MPs warned that politicising royal allegiance deepens division and risks entangling the monarchy in partisan conflict.

Speakers repeatedly emphasised that reverence for the monarchy is a shared national value, not the exclusive property of any political faction. They condemned the instrumental use of royal symbolism as a political shield and called for reforms to protect the monarchy from political exploitation. Monphorn Jaroensri (Pheu Thai) said the following:

Thai people have respect and reverence for the monarchy and are ready to protect the institution. It is not only General Prayuth Chan-o-cha who loves and respects the institution. And you should separate political conflict from the monarchy as well. Do not monopolise the institution for your side alone, because that is not the right thing to do. (SHR, 2020b: 4–5)

Julapan Amornwiwat (Pheu Thai) further delegitimised the emotional hierarchy implied by state-defined loyalty, arguing that claims to superior devotion necessarily produce moral exclusion:

Whenever someone claims that they possess loyalty as number one, it inevitably creates a number two, and then a ranking down to the very last. This means that if you say you love more than others, you push others to be labelled as loving less than you. These behaviours must end immediately. If you truly love the monarchy, (…) you should stand up as a soldier of the nation and take responsibility, declaring that the problems and conflicts in society, the failures in governance are solely the fault of me, General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, and that I resign from my position. (SHR, 2020a: 139–140)

Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn (MFP) further exposed how loyalty had been appropriated by the state as a resource for political consolidation and exclusion, illustrating how symbolic expressions of reverence were reframed as markers of regime allegiance:

On October 22, a man wearing a yellow shirt joined a protest to express his loyalty to the monarchy, but without supporting the dictatorial power of General Prayuth Chan-o-cha. He was nearly assaulted by another group of people also wearing yellow shirts. … When did the yellow shirt become a symbol created by General Prayuth to defend his power? (SHR, 2020b: 44–45)

Collectively, opposition MPs argued that the ruling coalition instrumentalised love and loyalty to attack opponents and legitimise its own power. They exposed how emotions once upheld as sacred expressions of national unity had been distorted by political manipulation, stripped of sincerity, and turned into tools of exclusion and control.

Fear: You Instil Fear in People, but It Is You Who Are Afraid

Alongside love and loyalty, fear has long functioned as a governance tool for the Thai establishment. During the October 2020 crackdown, the government arrested protest leaders, dispersed gatherings, and threatened harsher control measures (Lertchoosakul, 2022: 9–10). Opposition MPs used the parliamentary session to confront this politics of fear, criticising emergency decrees, violent dispersals, and surveillance as state-crafted tools of repression. In reframing fear as emanating from the state rather than the public, they depicted the government as insecure, afraid of losing power and fearful of its own citizens.

Nikom Bunvises (Thai People Power) explicitly blamed the government for using fear as a governing practice during the pandemic:

Coronavirus doesn’t grow like grass, and it doesn’t fall from the sky like rain. So please, do not instil fear in the public. (SHR, 2020b: 88)

Sompong Amornvivat (Pheu Thai) likewise attributed the state's harsh tactics to insecurity:

These harsh measures … arose more from your own fear and contempt towards the people than from any genuine concern for the safety of citizens, especially students and young people. (SHR, 2020a: 16)

Theerarat Samrejvanich (Pheu Thai) echoed this theme, portraying fear as a symptom of regime insecurity:

If you continue to shut your eyes and ears out of fear that your own power will slip away, to the point where our country can no longer find a way forward, then we no longer know whom to rely on, except for the people themselves to come together on the streets. (SHR, 2020b: 100)

Through this rhetorical inversion, opposition MPs not only criticised government conduct but also delegitimised fear as a morally valid basis for political authority. Fear was stripped of its protective or stabilising function and recast instead as a symptom of state insecurity and fragility. If fear exposed the state's vulnerability, hatred revealed its divisive and exclusionary logic.

Hatred: You Hate People, Then You Incite Hatred to Make People Hate Each Other

In the debates, opposition MPs blamed the government for actively producing and circulating hatred as a governing practice, framing hatred as a state-manufactured emotion deliberately cultivated to deepen social divisions and legitimise repression. They cited incidents like the 14 October 2020 royal motorcade, which, according to Suthawan Suban Na Ayudhya (MFP), was manipulated to defame citizens and fuel public hostility:

There is a tendency for the government to use this incident to stoke the fires of hatred among the people … An event like this occurred 44 years ago … before the tragedy of 6 October 1976. I would like to appeal that this royal motorcade incident not be used to malign the people and lead to another tragedy of that kind. (SHR, 2020a: 117–118)

Wiroj (MFP) further accused the Prayuth government of reproducing the affective conditions that had enabled past political violence, arguing that divisive rhetoric was being used to legitimise repression:

… what is truly unforgivable is the behaviour that may be an attempt to reproduce the events of 6 October 1976 … inciting and provoking people to hate one another, to harbour malice and resentment … , to the point where one group of citizens felt as though they had received permission to kill from the government. … Even now, the terms ‘nation-hater’ (ชังชาติ) and ‘anti-monarchy’(ล้มเจ้า) are repeatedly invoked—nation-hater, anti-monarchy, nation-hater, anti-monarchy—to incite hatred. And what do you think will happen next? Will people be pushed to kill one another, then have a Big Cleaning Day, then stage another coup, compose songs selling dreams, claim to reform, then kill again, and then stage yet another coup—repeating this cycle endlessly? I think this must end. (SHR, 2020b: 42–43)

Hatred is typically understood as a negative and intense emotion, an unconscious yet intentional feeling of “againstness” (Ahmed, 2014: 49). Under normal circumstances, the state would not openly acknowledge harbouring such an emotion towards its own citizens. Yet in this debate, opposition MPs exposed hatred as an emotion actively mobilised by the state to underpin its actions. Through this rhetorical move, they challenged the government's moral authority, stripped hatred of its moral disguise, and revealed the emotional harm inflicted on citizens in the pursuit of political control.

Anxiety, Hope, Grief, Anger, Fear, and Love: We Feel Them Too, Because We Stand with the People

Alongside blaming and delegitimising strategies, several opposition MPs expressed their own self-directed emotions that aligned with public sentiment. These emotions of anxiety, hope, grief, anger, fear, and love served to humanise MPs and position them as emotional representatives of public suffering rather than detached institutional actors (Sánchez Salgado, 2021: 518). Although not always articulated as direct accusations, such emotional performances implicitly challenged – and effectively blamed and delegitimised – the government's emotional regime by contrasting state-imposed emotional restraint with shared vulnerability and care.

Jiraporn (Pheu Thai) expressed anxiety about a potential return to state violence:

I am deeply anxious that the situation may once again lead to the dispersal of protesters. Thus, I would like to ask General Prayuth Chan-o-cha: will you implement a policy of using weapons to suppress students, university students, and young people? (SHR, 2020b: 164)

The most dramatic emotional intervention came from Visan Techatirawat (Pheu Thai), who slit his wrist in the chamber while calling for the prime minister's resignation:

Today, I feel compelled to act … I love Parliament. … but today I cannot think of how else I can solve this problem. I do not want to see the children bleeding, being injured. So Mr President, I must say that what I am about to do may be against parliamentary regulations, but I must do it. Mr President, I ask permission to cut myself and bleed, so that Prayuth can see that I truly mean this. Here, three cuts, take them. Please, I beg you. General Prayuth, will you be a tyrant or a hero? (SHR, 2020b: 206)

This act embodied a volatile mix of love, grief, desperation, and anger, producing a moment of emotional rupture that disrupted parliamentary feeling rules. By publicly expressing emotions that mirrored those circulating among protesting citizens, opposition MPs positioned themselves as affective proxies for the public. In doing so, they challenged both state legitimacy and the restrictive norms of parliamentary conduct, briefly transforming parliament into a space where emotional emancipation could be enacted and imagined.

Strategy 2: Re-Narrating Dominant Emotional Discourses

Beyond challenging the government's emotional framing, opposition MPs actively re-narrated key emotions by shifting their meanings from state-centred authority to inclusive and democratic interpretations. This strategy advanced alternative affective understandings that invited citizens to feel differently and reclaim emotional agency. Loyalty (18) and love (11) were most frequently re-narrated, followed by fear (11) and anxiety (4). Re-narration was coded when MPs redefined the meaning, object, or moral orientation of emotions by detaching them from state authority and rearticulating them in civic and pluralistic terms. Unlike delegitimising, which contests the state's moral authority to prescribe emotions, re-narrating operates constructively by offering alternative emotional scripts through which political community and legitimacy are reimagined.

Loyalty and Love: From Political Obedience to Democratic Agency

Loyalty and love towards the triad of “nation, religion, and monarchy,” long positioned as the emotional core of Thai national identity, have become increasingly detached from the lived experiences of younger generations (Kongrod, 2024). The 2020 student-led protests exposed this emotional disjuncture, revealing that Thailand's political divide is not only institutional or ideological but also profoundly affective (McCargo, 2025). For decades, ruling elites have mobilised loyalty and love to shape public sentiment and draw moral boundaries between “good” and “bad” citizens (Lavankura, 2021: 9–10; Meesuk, 2017). During the October 2020 debates, opposition MPs entered this contested emotional terrain to construct alternative narratives, reclaiming loyalty and love as shared civic values rather than instruments of exclusion.

Ekapop Pianpises (MFP) reframed love for the nation as commitment to the people rather than to power retention:

Since you say you love the nation, let me remind you: the nation is the people. If you do not love the people and treat them this way, then that means you do not love the nation either. Because loving the nation must be placed above your own position. Please resign, prime minister. (SHR, 2020a: 204)

Similarly, Nikom (Thai People Power) redefined loyalty as a civic virtue:

Loyalty means doing what is good for the nation: not committing corruption, not wasting away the people's taxes, not borrowing until the country is drowning in debt. Civil servants show loyalty by performing their duties to the best of their ability. Citizens show loyalty by fulfilling their civic responsibility. Everyone has a duty to perform—that is loyalty. We don’t need to wear a yellow shirt to prove loyalty. (SHR, 2020b: 85)

Through these interventions, opposition MPs re-narrated loyalty and love as inclusive, action-based democratic values rather than markers of regime allegiance. This redefinition constituted a form of emotional emancipation, opening space for new affective norms capable of supporting political pluralism and democratic development in Thailand.

Fear: The State Fears the People, People Fear Economic Hardship

Fear is another emotion whose meaning shifted during the debates. Once deployed by authoritarian regimes as a tool of control, fear was re-narrated by opposition MPs as reflecting broader insecurities rooted in economic precarity and state failure. MPs relocated the source of fear from state coercion to the government's inability to safeguard livelihoods and futures. Tawee Sodsong (Prachachat) argued as follows:

One of the greatest fears is the fear concerning welfare and the economy, the fear that one's children and grandchildren will not have enough to eat, the fear that they will face hardship. The second is the fear for personal safety and death. Right now, the youth … are afraid of General Prayuth, because if he remains in power, they will have no future. (SHR, 2020a: 191)

Through this rhetorical inversion, MPs directly challenged fear-based governance. They reframed the “real fear” as stemming from poverty, insecurity, and state neglect rather than fear of authority itself. Several MPs further reversed the state's emotional narrative by arguing that it was not the people who feared the state, but the state that feared its own citizens, citing the growing defiance of youth movements as evidence that fear of authoritarian power was eroding (SHR, 2020b: 22, 27, 118, 147). By exposing this contrast, opposition MPs stripped fear of its coercive legitimacy and expanded the emotional boundaries of politics, enabling citizens to imagine agency in place of fear-based submission.

Anxiety: Shifting Blame from Outside to Inside

The government's emotional framing of anxiety remained anchored in Cold War-era narratives that located threat outside the state. During the October 2020 debates, anxiety was attributed to external dangers such as COVID-19, foreign influence on youth mobilisation, and unregulated social media, thereby legitimising emergency powers and portraying the government as the guardian of national stability (SHR, 2020a, 2020b).

Opposition MPs re-narrated this discourse by relocating the source of anxiety from external threats to internal failures of governance. Sompong (Pheu Thai), for example, highlighted widespread anxiety over the government's handling of youth protests (SHR, 2020a: 14), while Picharn Chaowapatanawong (MFP) warned that continued reliance on the Emergency Decree risked violating Thailand's international human rights commitments (SHR, 2020a: 42). Other MPs criticised attempts to mobilise pro-government groups (yellow shirts) against student demonstrators, arguing that such actions intensified social division (SHR, 2020a: 25, 2020b: 43).

Through these interventions, opposition MPs redefined anxiety as an internally generated political condition rooted in state failure rather than an externally induced threat. This re-narration enabled citizens to question governmental competence and reclaim interpretive authority over crises.

Strategy 3: Proposing Solutions to National Crises

In this strategy, hope (17) served as the primary emotion through which opposition MPs articulated pathways out of crisis, often accompanied by love (5), loyalty (4), anger (2), and hatred (2). Together, these emotions signalled a shift from confrontation towards resolution, even though this strategy accounted for only around 15% of the total discourse.

Proposing solutions was coded when MPs moved beyond critique to articulate concrete or symbolic pathways for reconciliation, explicitly linking emotions to future-oriented action. Unlike blaming or delegitimising, which focus on past or present failures, this strategy oriented emotional discourse towards problem-solving by projecting the possibility of a better political future.

Hope: A Pathway to Consensus

Hope was closely tied to visions of reform and national reconciliation. Several opposition MPs expressed hope that this special parliamentary session could offer a way out of the country's deepening political crisis (SHR, 2020b: 188, 232, 264, 271, 272). Manoon Sivapiromrat (New Economics) noted that citizens were looking to parliament as a source of hope and emphasised that the legislature must deliver concrete solutions before public confidence in parliamentary and political institutions eroded further (SHR, 2020b: 187–188).

Love, Loyalty, Anger, and Hatred: From Confrontation to Coexistence

Alongside hope, opposition MPs re-articulated other emotions as shared values capable of transcending political divides. Wiroj (MFP), for example, called for a form of love grounded in mutual respect and empathy, urging all sides to commit to coexistence without malice (SHR, 2020b: 47). Anger and hatred were likewise redirected away from confrontation towards de-escalation and institutional repair. Padipat Suntiphada (MFP) proposed revoking the Emergency Decree, dropping charges against protesters, and creating safe spaces for dialogue as concrete steps towards reconciliation (SHR, 2020b: 138).

Conclusion

The October 2020 debates illustrate Thailand's broader political and emotional divisions. Opposition MPs employed three interrelated rhetorical strategies: blaming and delegitimising the government's emotional regime centred on love, loyalty, fear, and hatred; re-narrating these emotions as inclusive civic values; and proposing emotionally charged pathways towards collective responsibility and political repair. Over eight hours, parliament became a rare formal arena where long-suppressed emotions surfaced and were reworked as instruments of political critique.

By mobilising love, loyalty, fear, hatred, and hope, opposition MPs did more than engage in rhetorical performance; they confronted the emotional regime underpinning Thailand's semi-authoritarian order. Acting as affective mirrors, they exposed emotional narratives, cultivating conformity while suppressing dissent. The metaphor of “tears behind the microphone” captures this moment of emotional release, signalling a refusal to inhabit inherited emotional templates and challenging the affective foundations of established political legitimacy.

The October 2020 session reflects a contest between elites and opposition over norms of emotional expression. While cracks in the dominant affective order emerged, whether these moments produce lasting change depends on political actors’ capacity to sustain autonomy within constraining power structures. Emotional emancipation does not offer institutional solutions but renders visible how authority is affectively produced. Although breaking these cycles is difficult, change remains possible through social recognition and the mending of broken social bonds (Ahmed, 2014; Reddy, 2001; Scheff, 1994; Wouters, 2012).

By examining parliamentary emotional discourse, this study advances an emotional regime-emotional emancipation framework, demonstrating that emotions are not peripheral to politics but constitutive of political inclusion, exclusion, and power. While grounded in Thailand, the framework may inform analyses of other settings characterised by ongoing contestation between emotional suppression from above and pressures for emotional emancipation from below.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Professor Duncan McCargo and participants at the Association of Southeast Asian Studies (ASEAS) 2025 Conference in Cambridge for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. The author also thanks the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and insightful suggestions, which substantially strengthened the clarity and analytical rigour of the article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is part of the research project “Political Emotions of Members of Parliament in the Thai Parliamentary Meeting”, supported by a research grant from Ramkhamhaeng University, Thailand.

ORCID iD

Pad Lavankura

Notes

Author Biography

Pad Lavankura is assistant professor in the Faculty of Political Science at Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok. She received her PhD in Politics from the University of Leeds, UK. Her research examines Thai politics, with a specific focus on political thought, discourse and development policy. Her current work investigates the role of political emotions in governance and democratic transformation.

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