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This study aimed to examine the halal industry in relation to Thai public diplomacy. The Thai Government aims to build an image as a country that is friendly to Muslim tourists. This study applied the concept of halal and public diplomacy in understanding Thailand's economic development policies, especially in the manufacturing and tourism sectors. Qualitative research methods were used and data were collected through interviews and a literature review. The findings indicated that through the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the Government is focused on developing the halal industry, including in relation to tourism. The objective of these services is to provide comfort and MICE facilities for Muslim tourists. The government established the Halal Industry Center on the southern border of Pattani province. A halal certification system was also developed in Thailand in collaboration with Chulalongkorn University. The Thai Agricultural Halal Standard (TAS 8400-2007) is the legal umbrella for implementing halal certification, which refers to the international halal standard - Codex. Thailand's halal food market is growing 20% every year, making it the sixth-ranked country for halal food exports. China, the 57 OIC member countries, the United States, India and Russia are Thailand's main markets. To promote Thailand's halal tourism and industry, the government collaborates with ASEAN and Middle East countries and regularly participates in organizing exhibitions and international business forums. The Thai Government's efforts have had a positive impact on the national income and have contributed to a yearly increase of 10% in the number of Muslim tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disagreements between Thai partisans have manifested in the competition between red and yellow shirts. This study aims to explore bias of each partisan by employing the concept of confirmation bias. Experimental treatments were divided according to how participants were exposed to an information: (1) exposure to positive information about red politics, (2) exposure to negative information about red politics, (4) exposure to positive information about yellow politics, and (4) exposure to negative information about yellow politics. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed to identify the participants’ original political ideology and verify whether their original beliefs changed or preserved after exposure to the experimental information. The results revealed that there existed persistence of political traits but not for all participants. There was also a decrease of political convictions after some treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2006 coup d'état was a milestone in the massive socio-political changes of contemporary Thailand. Architecture, as a product and representation of society, did not escape its impact. Architectural projects launched by the Thai state in the past decade, from their concepts to their architectural styles, have been built in association with this socio-political crisis. This paper examines Ultra-Thai Architecture, a new style of architecture emerging from the crisis, as 'symbolic violence'. It considers three case studies: the new Parliament, the new Supreme Court, and the renovation of Sanam Luang (Royal Field). The article suggests that Ultra-Thai Architecture is founded on hyper-royalist and Buddhist fundamentalist ideologies that attained prominence after the 2006 coup d'état, and that were further strengthened after the latest coup in 2014, which was strongly supported by the Thai military junta and traditional elites. The architectural spaces and forms of state buildings are designed to buttress the political ideologies of the state and to oppose the pro-democracy movement that has been growing for more than ten years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monarchy and the country's military dominate discussions of Thai political history. The country's democratic history meanwhile is much less well known. To many people, historiography – the history of the writing of history – is a dull affair that only concerns academics. But the changing representations of the origins of democracy in the 1932 revolution that ended the absolute monarchy show the politics of history as a continuous problem that still shapes Thai society. The interpretations have been bound to the bitter partisanship that has accompanied a history of political instability. This article examines the changing interpretations of 1932 in their historical contexts and demonstrates the central antagonism towards the ideal of popular sovereignty, despite its long history in the country, that is still held by the military and monarchic elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of Indigenous Peoples of Thailand. It focuses on the Thailand's general election in which Pracharath party and their allies won a majority along with other political parties who have committed to pursuing the adoption of the existing draft; also focuses on establishment of a parliamentary standing committee on Indigenous Peoples and ethnic groups.

This article focuses on contestation over "good politics" in Thailand among yellow and red shirt supporters, and conflict and polarisation, in the last decade. It applies the phenomenology of "everyday politics" to understand the diversity of perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, experiences and emotions of the different sets of protesters, and shows how they define good politics in their own terms. The main argument is that conflicts between the yellow shirts and the red shirts cannot be fully comprehended simply by contrasting two political ideologies and social classes. Thai political conflicts represent the contestation of different meanings of good politics, which themselves reflect the complexities of underlying social conflicts, as well as the disintegration of the legitimacy of Thailand's political order. Significantly, these different meanings of good politics reflect different emotional and political realities both between and within the yellow and red shirt supporters. These different realities closely link to experiences of cultural learning, social class and conflict issues in specific contexts and positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Camp humour in the counterpublic sphere is one mode to express survivalist subversion when open resistance is not possible. This essay takes stock of camp aesthetics specifically in independent digital films that critique the Thai state while simultaneously healing the oppressed, through perversity, queer politics and satirical humour. The films discussed in this article use the following queer strategies: (1) the reversal of values through exaggeration and excess (Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy critiques authoritarian prescriptions for happiness, taking them to excess to unleash murder and mayhem); (2) revelling in sexual perversity through temporal postulations (Supernatural poses as complex layers of sci-fi Thai gay pornography, but is in fact social critique); (3) presenting postcolonial critique of the country through satire (Madam Anna, Nipples, Macaron, Ponyangkam and Basic Education satirizes Anna and the King); and (4) using poorly acted melodrama in drag to trigger the comedic uncanny (Behind the Painting is a remake of Sriburapha's popular 1937 novel, a commentary on Thailand's elite alignment with Japan). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to map out the practices of inter-local collaboration in Thailand and understand the conditions that facilitate the formation and sustainability of the existing collaboration. The mixed methods research design was employed by which in-depth interviews of specific cases were adopted to elaborate on the statistical findings. The study found that, for the most part, inter-local collaboration in the largest region of the country was asymmetric. The case study findings undermine resource dependency theory, given that councils with larger resources can become locked-in to disadvantageous relationships with, and be controlled by, smaller councils with fewer resources. This is because asymmetric relationships and vertical forms of inter-local collaboration were facilitated by the strong hierarchical social system prevalent in Thai culture and the Thai local government system, in which the "big brother" council is expected to help smaller "new-born" councils. This influence of socio-cultural conditions on inter-local collaboration, thus, should be taken into account in existing theories of inter-local collaboration so that they move beyond consideration only of legal-institutional perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most popular man in Thailand appears out of the bushes on Thammasat University campus, dripping with sweat and with no staff in sight: Future Forward leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit is promptly mobbed by fans clamouring for selfies and autographs. Voters on Bangkok's Charoenkrung Road look delighted to see a former prime minister out on the campaign trail: eager to show off his fitness, Abhisit Vejjajiva practically runs up some footbridge steps, leaving the local candidate panting behind. A Pheu Thai candidate asks a village crowd in Ubon Ratchathani to raise their hands if they are better off now than they were five years ago: everyone roars with laughter at a woman who puts her hand up by mistake, since nobody could possibly be better off. In Pattani, thousands of people stay until midnight at a football ground to hear prominent speakers from the Prachachart Party. No big outdoor rallies like this have been held after dark in the three insurgency-affected southern border provinces since 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the potential influence of foreign linkages on regime outcomes by comparing Myanmar and Thailand. Linkages with the West are supposed to facilitate democratization, whereas those with autocracies usually promote regime survival. This study focuses on Myanmar and Thailand's linkages with the U.S. and China, which at first sight seem to demonstrate the hypothesized effects. Myanmar gradually liberalized while strengthening its Western linkages, whereas Thailand experienced democratic breakdown amid a shift in alignment from the U.S. to China. However, in-depth analysis suggests that the influence of foreign linkages on domestic political change was minimal and that the relationship may very well be endogenous. The findings of this study call for a more careful theorization and handling of the external factors in studies of regime change and highlight the importance of simultaneously analyzing democratic and autocratic linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Created in 1997 as part of a major constitutional reform, Thailand's Constitutional Court has since become embroiled in several high-profile political controversies. Since the 2006 coup, because a number of such decisions have favoured one political camp and considering obvious close and long-standing relations between judges and political elites, questions have arisen about the court's ability to act as an independent arbiter. Is this view justifiable? To answer that question, this article first analyses how the court has behaved across political administrations in 32 high-profile cases since 2001. It then turns to the socio-biographic profile of the bench, the politics of nominations and changes to its composition, particularly since 2006. Finally, the article considers data on participants in classes offered by the Constitutional Court, which makes it possible to better understand the links between Thai political and judicial networks. The analysis finds evidence of politically biased voting patterns and increasingly partisan nominations to the court, though formally appointment procedures are apolitical, which suggests the politicisation of the court and growing ties between judicial and political elites. These findings raise new questions about the public's perception of the Constitutional Court's legitimacy and prospects for the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the death of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2016, his image has continued to play a defining role in the articulation of Thainess (khwampenthai) in reference to the country's "authentic" premodern past and its teleological "progress." This essay addresses several paradoxes in this image and its relationship to Thailand's embattled political history. How might the royal photograph be both sacred and secular? How are premodern understandings of kingship, including the taboo on the monarchy's public representation, reconciled with the contemporary hypervisibility of the monarchy? And what implications do references to the premodern past have for debates over defining democracy in Thailand? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that a perceived liberal 'defection' to a 2006 military coup in Thailand can help illuminate the authoritarian face of liberalism during an existential crisis; more provisionally, it is proposed that the Thai experience may provide lessons for understanding liberal decisionism. Detailing a single case has the advantage of embedding the discussion in cultural, historical and political detail without which the action is incomprehensible. The article applies decisionist and morphological theory and historical analysis as it explores the factors and motives leading to liberal coup complicity. The article's chief objective is to make intelligible a form of liberal extra-constitutional decisionism in a non-western setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview: The smart city, seen at the end of the 20th century in the West, has become a national policy strategy for social and economic development in Thailand in the first decade of this century. While the central government is overseeing and financially supporting designated cities in Thailand, key business and community leaders in Khon Kaen City have worked diligently but have not yet received all the necessary approvals from the central government for locally‐based smart city initiatives. We demonstrate that direction without a clear policy statement will not produce the intended results. Moreover, the highly centralized bureaucratic management style may result in lost opportunities for Thailand to improve life for its citizens. Thailand needs to completely and successfully overhaul its political system in order to pave the way for a functional democracy, good governance, and responsive bureaucracy before its implementation of smart city policy will produce maximum benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that contextually reading two disputes involving Siam— Cheek v. Siam (1898) and the Temple of Preah Vihear (1962)—proves that both private law and public international law are structurally rigged against ex-semi-colonial nations. Nineteenth-century Siam was a political ferment known variously as a semi-colonial, semi-peripheral, non-colonial, or uncolonized polity. Siam bargained under imperial shadows her political independence by the tactical grants of concession contracts, as well as by negotiating treaties with competing European powers. In the post-colonial Temple of Preah Vihear case, colonial stationery—maps, photographs, and communiqués—as well as imperial customs offered evidentiary support to Cambodia, an ex-colonial state, against Thailand. In the early twentieth century, while authors picked Cheek v. Siam as a precedent for the law of international claims, textbooks offer the Temple of Preah Vihear case as a precedent on the form of treaties and estoppel. Conclusively, these two cases allow us to locate, if not exorcise, the ghosts of empires in Asian legal history, exposing, at the same time, Judge Koo's Orientalization of customary international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines nation branding in the context of post-coup Thailand. It challenges the dominant view within the nation-branding literature that nation branding is an externally-oriented, apolitical, business-derived practice aimed at increasing a country’s global competitive advantage. Instead, the paper argues, nation branding is a highly-politicised practice that is primarily aimed at changing the social attitudes and behaviours of the nation’s citizens. To demonstrate the political nature and internal focus of nation branding, this paper examines one of Thailand’s recent branding initiatives - the Thailand 4.0 project - that promotes sustainable economic growth in a digital age. The paper first discusses nation branding from a theoretical perspective drawing on studies in the fields of business, international relations, culture and the media. Secondly, it contextualises Thai nation branding within the political developments of the past decade. Thirdly, it analyses the project’s contents and surrounding discourses, drawing on primary data gathered during the author’s 2016 field research in Thailand. The paper argues that Thailand 4.0 is an exercise in internal nation branding aimed at enhancing the military junta’s power and legitimacy by “selling” a vision of economic prosperity to the Thai people in exchange for their support, trust and loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the 2006 and 2014 Thai coups, observers declared the resurrection of the bureaucratic polity. Bureaucrats, though, remained influential even during the period of 1992–2006, when elected politicians were thought to command the Thai state. Bureaucratic involvement in politics poses a challenge for dominant political science theories of politician–bureaucrat relationships, which draw heavily from principal–agent frameworks. I apply agency theory to Thailand, testing three different hypotheses derived from the theory. Examining legislative productivity and control over bureaucratic career trajectories, I find that elected politicians increasingly acted as principals of the Thai state from 1992 through 2006, and to a lesser degree from 2008 to 2013. Thai bureaucrats, though, have frequently engaged in the political sphere, blunting political oversight and expanding their independence vis-à-vis politicians. This suggests that the principal–agent model overlooks the range of resources that bureaucracies can bring to bear in developing countries, granting them greater autonomy than anticipated. As such, theories of the politician–bureaucrat relationship in developing states need to better account for the mechanisms through which bureaucrats exercise policy discretion and political influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thai bureaucracy, viewed as a subsystem of Thailand's self-contained political system, variously manifests cultural uniqueness. Insulated from external pressures as a result of the absorption of major societal interests within the government, the bureaucracy's orientation and preoccupations are conspicuously introverted. Political influence, personalities, and prerogative provide the immediate frames of reference of administrative officialdom. Career strategies, working doctrines, and standards of conduct in the civil service are flexibly calibrated to the particularistic norms of ranking superiors. Authority relationships, structured mainly by impermanent personal clique groupings, are tenuous and unstable. But efforts to institutionalize formal sanctions and channels of accountability founder on a cultural predilection for informal and covert control devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the impact of COVID-19 public health interventions on influenza incidence in Thailand. Topics include that the government implemented public health measures to mitigate COVID-19 transmission, which comprised social distancing, wearing a face mask, washing hands, measuring body temperature, and closure of public gathering venues.

Siam's practices of polygamy variously bemused and shocked European visitors to the kingdom in the nineteenth century; however, especially in the case of the early Chakri monarchy, there was always also a strong political rationale to such customs. Multiple liaisons would yield multiple sons who could subsequently serve as defenders of both realm and dynasty; later, as the nation evolved, they could form a pool of ministers and administrators. Multiple daughters, in turn, were always useful in shoring up support from a restive nobility. Sons in particular, however, presented a real estate challenge as they had to be housed in appropriate style and this called for a profusion of both small and large palaces, wang, throughout the old historic city of Rattanakosin. From the locations of wang and their degrees of splendour one might have been able to read the evolving politics and political economy of early Bangkok, also the always evolving role of the monarchy, except that most have been swept away for more mundane urban development. Yet enough evidence remains for the story still to be pieced together, thereby throwing some light on currently fraught debates over the political context and role of the monarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Boworadet Rebellion in October 1933 brought brutality into the heart of Thailand's politics. It was followed by a proliferation of commemorative practices focusing on the commoners who sacrificed their lives for the country. In the aftermath of the incident, the search for an appropriate language of loss involved the making of a new meaning of national sacrifice and what it was to be a good citizen. This article considers the nationalisation of death, as manifested in the commemorative visual forms of the crematorium for the 17 soldiers and police officers at Sanam Luang and the Safeguarding the Constitution Monument in Lak Si District. It concentrates on the appropriation of royal inheritance by the People's Party and the transformation of phan ratthathammanun (a Book of the Constitution on an ornate double tray), which first appears in an anti-royalist context after the revolutionaries suppressed the Boworadet Rebellion. The presence of phan ratthathammanun in this context marks the separation of constitutionalism from royalism and establishes it as a stand-alone symbol of a supreme ideology worth dying for. This article analyses the visual culture of the period following the Boworadet Rebellion in relation to the formation of the Boworadet Rebellion war memory, the new ideology of constitutionalism and the new identity of the Thai people as citizens of the nation instead of subjects of the King. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]