Daniel Arghiros - Democracy, Development and Decentralization in Provincial Thailand

Democracy, Development and Decentralization in Provincial Thailand

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Democracy in Asia series
Series Editors: Tak-Wing Ngo (Sinological Institute, Leiden University) and Hans Antl (Program on Governance & Civil Society, Ford Foundation, Jakarta)

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Edited by Hans Antlv and Sven Cederroth

Democracy, Development and Decentralization in Provincial Thailand
Daniel Arghiros

In recent years an often acrimonious EastWest debate has arisen on issues of democracy, human rights, good governance, etc. One aim of this series is to augment traditional political studies with more culturally sensitive treatments so that our knowledge of local interpretations of democracy and political legitimacy is improved. Accordingly, studies that are welcome additions to the series will be those of local political structures and political cultures (and their operation within national political processes), new avenues of transnational interaction, and the meeting between what governments interpret as democracy and local cultural and political realities. In so doing, the series will contribute to the discussion about democracy, democratization and democratic alternatives in Asia, and provide a natural meeting place for scholars working in this field.

Daniel Arghiros

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Democracy in Asia series, no. 8

First published in 2001
by Curzon Press

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Daniel Arghiros 2001

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Arghiros, Daniel
Democracy, development and decentralization in provincial
Thailand. - (Democracy in Asia series: no. 8)
1. Elections - Thailand - History 2. Democracy - Thailand
3. Thailand - Politics and government - 20th century
I. Title
321.8'.09593'09045

ISBN 978-0-700-71522-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-700-71523-7 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-315-02913-9 (eISBN)

This book began life in doctoral research and is the outcome of work that spans more than a decade. The first period of fieldwork (198990) was funded by a special scholarship made available by the University Grants Committee, as well as awards from the Evans Fellowship Fund and the Emslie Horniman Anthropological Scholarship Fund. The second period (199597) was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [H52427004094] and the British Academy. With respect to both periods of field research, I would like to thank the National Research Council of Thailand for granting me research permission, and I thank Chulalongkorn University's Social Research Institute for providing me with an institutional base. 1 would also like to extend my warm thanks to my colleagues in the Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull, for their support and advice over the years.

It is with a deep sense of obligation that I thank the people of 'Ban Thung' and 'Klang' district. There are a number of individuals to whom I owe a particular debt of gratitude. However, this book deals with political practices that some people would prefer remain undocumented, and it is in the interests of my friends and informants to remain anonymous. It is a testament to the hospitality, warmth and openness of these friends, and of the broader community, that I remember my time in Klang as amongst my happiest. I feel extremely privileged to have been able to share their lives.

It is impossible to adequately thank my wife and colleague, Joanne Moller. She has contributed to the writing of this book in more ways than I could mention and more ways than she can know. Not least, I have benefited from her hard-won insights into Thai culture and society, and from her meticulous editing of drafts of this book. Her clarity of thought has greatly helped improve its content.

I dedicate this book to Joanne, to our son Luke, whose arrival determined its completion, and to the memory of my mentor, Samuel Peter Whitley.

Beverley, August 2000

In early 1990 the father of a candidate for the position of subdistrict head ( kamnan ) stands opposite a diminutive old widow. She sits outside her flimsy bamboo shack with her neighbours, all of them landless and subsisting on piecework and casual agricultural labour. He is twirling a pistol on his finger while asking the woman, Nok, to vote for his son. He hands her 100 baht (about $4) and she assures him that she will do so. Nok and her neighbours dare not talk openly about the forthcoming election or speak the candidates' names aloud. One of the candidates is their village head, whose father made such an unsubtle appeal for support; the other owns a business that employs some of her neighbours. These women are also apprehensive that somehow the candidates and their canvassers will know for whom they vote in the secret ballot. The person they elect will not only preside over law and order in the locality but will also be chairman of the local council and will determine the use of state development funds. He will, for example, decide whether their repeated request for a raised path into their neighbourhood will be met or if they and their children will continue to have to wade through mud and stagnant water for most of the year.