Elite family politics in Laos before 1975

Abstract

ABSTRACT Major General Phasouk S. Rajphakd and Brigadier General Soutchay Vongsavanh were important right-wing military officers in the Royal Lao Army in southern Laos before 1975. However, elite family relations in Laos – especially between prominent families from the north and the south – greatly affected how they acted and interacted over the years. This article considers family relations in Laos during the 1960s and early 1970s. Kinship relations are certainly not determinant of all social or political interactions, as individual agency is also important, but they are often crucial nonetheless. There has been insufficient discussion about how elite family relations played out in Laos during the 1954–1975 period. To partially fill this gap, this article explores how tensions between the House of Champassak in southern Laos and the House of Luang Prabang and the powerful Sananikone family in Vientiane led to disunity amongst non-communist factions in Laos, and eventually contributed to the Pathet Lao takeover of the country in 1975.