Markets, media, and magic: Thailand's monarch as a ‘virtual deity’

Abstract

This study documents the growth of the discourse of ‘god‐king’ (devaraja) around Thailand's King Bhumibol and explores how Brahmanical symbolisms of royal absolutism have acquired renewed potency alongside Buddhism as a basis of political legitimation in 21st century Thailand. Previous studies have interpreted the growing trend for Thailand's constitutional monarch to be represented as a ‘demi‐divine’ ‘virtual god‐king’ to reflect an ideological strategy set in train by mid‐20th century authoritarian military rule. However, political processes alone do not account fully for the persistence and intensification of this phenomenon since the end of military dictatorship. The pre‐modern discourse of ‘god‐king’ has also been given new life by visual media and the spectralisation of life under neoliberalism, which together produce a regime of representation that auraticises King Bhumibol. These technologies of enchantment have permitted emerging prosperity religions to be harnessed to a conservative nationalist agenda and, together with Thailand's strictly policed lese‐majesty law, have institutionalised a commodified and mass‐mediatised ideology of magico‐divine royal power that works to legitimate King Bhumibol's acquisition of political influence.