Populism and Reformism in Contemporary Thailand

Abstract

This paper argues that two main strands of populist thinking emerged in Thailand in the wake of the 1997 economic crisis. One was a kind of resurgent nationalism, which sought to blame the West – particularly international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF – for Thailand's problems, criticizing globalization and the ‘imperialist designs’ of the G7 to subordinate Thailand to economic colonialism. A second form of populist sentiment was based on critiques of the Thai development path of capitalist industrialization, and of Thailand's increasing integration into the world economy: the result was a discourse of localism, emphasizing the need for return to agrarian roots. Some populist arguments drew freely on both these dominant strains of discourse. The paper acknowledges that perhaps neither discourse was truly populist, in the sense that ‘the people’ were not clearly invoked, and that post-1997 Thai populism quite closely resembled official Thai nationalism, replete with élitist and statist rhetoric. Nevertheless, it is possible to make a strong case for the use of this term in the Thai context, stressing the extent to which localist responses to the crisis were traditional, conservative, and nostalgic, emphasizing agriculture, criticizing industrialization, and denouncing exploitation by outsiders. The power of these discourses lay in their syncretism, blending elements of standard official nationalism with an implicit, highly romanticized evocation of khon Thai (Thai people) as village-dwelling farmers, buffeted by the storms of global capitalism.