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Over the previous decade and half Thailand has undergone two judicial coup d'états and two military coup d'états, the latest of which was successfully undertaken on 22 May 2014. The Thai military has consistently intervened in Thailand's political affairs since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932. The latest coup has seen the junta stay in power threw flawed elections held on 24 March 2019. This paper attempts to illustrate the Thai military's latest tactics to extend their grip on power through the electoral process. The author argues that the latest attempt to legitimize military authoritarianism is an updated version of previous junta strategies. Namely, legitimizing the military junta by drafting a new Constitution, legitimizing the Constitution through a public referendum and creating a military led party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present exploratory paper tackles the issue of human trafficking in Thailand. Southeast Asia is a region known as both a recipient and as an exporter of trafficked workers. It is important to understand the pull and the push factors making Thailand an important destination and conduit for human trafficking. The fishing and sex industries seem to be at the center of this phenomenon nevertheless the practice can also be found in rubber plantations and in some factories. A critical theory approach is applied and cultural context is provided so as to understand this complex phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to problematize education in Thailand. Jan Nederveen Pieterse's model of ethnic domination is used as the theoretical framework to reveal the important and often ignored role of education in perpetuating socioeconomic and political elite dominance in Thailand. Ethnic domination is complemented with Paulo Freire's liberation pedagogy. The paper shows how ethnic and economic domination of a small Central Thai elite over the vast majority of the population is achieved through a concerted propaganda effort integrating primary and secondary education with tight control over religious practices and strict censorship of the media. Case studies are provided of the role of Ministry of Education in the central government's attempt to forcefully integrate the Muslim Malay population in the Southern Provinces and the Lao (Isan) region in the North. Finally, the contested role of private education is discussed in relation to central control over education. The paper concludes that civic and religious education in primary and secondary schools is part of a broader strategy for the perpetuation of a narrow ethnocracy, and that the recent growth of the private education. An education model based on Freire's concept of "conscientization" is proposed as guiding principle to empower the peoples of Siam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jan Nederveen Pieterse's model of ethnic relations is applied to the socio-political unrest of Thailand in the early 21st century. This paper argues that Pieterse's model of global multiculture and multiethnicity complements Marxist and neo-Marxist explanations of the political unrest in a dialectical relationship. Thus, structural factors such as the economy and the political system are dialectically influenced by cultural and ethnic politics. The use by the royalist elite of state power to install and then defend a national culture (based on a civic religion) is explored in a variety of activities and spheres such as education, the media, usage of public space, economic public policy, religion, and foreign policy. Increasing efforts to defend the Thai ethnocracy are revealed to reflect its weakening vis a vis competing ethnicities and cultures seeking a place in the national culture and socio-political institutions. Finally the paper concludes that renewed calls for greater autonomy for minorities and for the renaming of the country to its old name, Siam, are signs that the country is moving to Pieterse's third stage of ethnic relations called "ethnic competition" which explains the recent exponential increase in socio-political unrest throughout the entire country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High performance organization (HPO) bases entities which perform differently from traditional organizations following a conventional hierarchical. They use strategic planning to interconnectedness among organizational to achieve high payoff results. The high performance organization involves many causes which effect on developing organization performance. The new generation of military should focus on how to develop his force through the next 50 years. Our force is made up of people, weapons, equipment and organization, which can be brought them together for working effectively. This study was undertaken to identify factors that affect to military. Data was collected from secondary sources including review of contemporary management literature, journals, and other published. Also, the data was interviewed from high rank commanders who achieve in Royal Thai Air Force and involve high performance system. This paper clearly points to determine what makes a military an HPO. It also identifies organizational elements and discusses in the detail to explore what is important for being high performance organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines development interventions and their implications for ethnic communities within the framework of peoplecentered development in specific contexts of southeastern Bangladesh and northern Thailand. The development interventions did not contribute to poverty alleviation and they undermined viable alternative approaches to the livelihoods of the ethnic communities. Moreover, these development interventions failed to or did not recognize the psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of the concerned communities. It is suggested that development needs to be embedded in and based on local knowledge, culture and bio-physical environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of culture in two important events in the history of the separatist struggle in the Muslim South of Thailand. The first event was the "gentlemen's agreement" of 1943, promising Britain's support for independence or annexation to British Malaya in exchange of military and intelligence support against the Japanese, between the traditional Melayu leadership and the British Colonial Office represented by the commander of the British forces in Malaya during World War II. Emic and etic explanations are provided from the point of view of the Melayu leardership and of the British. The second event that is discussed is more complex and involves Malaysia's support for the separatist movement and subsequent negotiations during the 1980s between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur leading to an agreement stipulating that Malaysia would cease aiding the separatist movement in exchange of Thailand's support against the Communist Party of Malaya along the porous Thai-Malay border. Finally, a brief conclusion summarizes the importance of culture in the history of the separatist movement of Southern Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper concentrates on three powerful ideas introduced by three important theorists, namely, Merton's interpretation of anomie in America, Fromm's critical aesthetics regarding man's consciousness in relation to nature, and finally Du Bois' concept of the "racial wage" (Lemert, 2004, pp. 218-240). Those theories are then applied to the Japanese phenomenon of the "compensated date" and the Thai "sex industry". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]