Pavin Chachavalpongpun, ed. "Good Coup" Gone Bad: Thailand's Political Developments since Thaksin's Downfall. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014, xv+290p.

Abstract

Good Coup Gone Bad: Thailand's Political Developments since Thaksin's DownfallPAVIN CHACHAVALPONGPUN, ed.Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014, xv+290p.Come back, General Sonthi-all is forgiven! The 2006 coup may have turned bad, but compared with the 2014 coup it now looks positively benign. This useful edited volume appeared just in time to serve as a primer for what went wrong in the wake of the previous military seizure of power. But apart from one chapter on the military, the focus of the book is not on the coup itself, but on a range of related actors and issues. The book is divided into four sections of two or three chapters: the impact of the coup on Thailand's political landscape; the military and the monarchy; the emergence of yellow and red politics; and crises of legitimacy. In a sparse field, the volume is an invaluable addition to reading lists (I have already assigned it to my students), but some chapters are stronger than others, and several of them go over ground that the same authors have already covered in previous writings. To my mind the first two sections are much the most useful, and Thongchai Winichakul's chapter on monarchy and anti-monarchy stands out as the centerpiece of the book.Thongchai's argument can be distilled into one provocative and important assertion: the Thai monarchy, far from serving as a source of stability, lies at the core of the country's persistent instability and regular recourse to mass bloodshed, as seen in the four violent crackdowns of 1973, 1976, 1992, and 2010. Offering a brilliant exegesis of a provocative speech by redshirt leader Nattawut Saikua in 2008 about the contrast between the earth and the sky, Thongchai demonstrates how a combination of hyper-royalism and suppression has helped produce a large-scale awakening of anti-monarchist sentiments. Most dangerously of all, widespread popular denial about the problematic role of the monarchy and the impending succession means that many Thais are living in a kind of alternate reality. However dark the period since September 2006 has been for Thailand's politics, worse is yet to come.Thongchai's paper is bookended by two others: James Ockey on the military, and David Streckfuss on Thailand's lese-majeste laws (on which Streckfuss is the world's leading authority). Streckfuss provides detailed evidence of the steep climb in Article 112 cases brought since the coup, and especially since the arrival of the unelected Abhisit Vejjajiva government in late 2008. Citing historical examples from France and Germany, Streckfuss argues that heavy-handed use of such laws undermines the legitimacy of the monarchy and so runs precisely counter to their stated aim of protecting the royal institution. The chapter should whet readers' appetites to tackle Streckfuss's 2011 book Truth on Trial in Thailand, in which he explores these arguments at much greater length. Ockey's chapter argues that developments such as the assassination by a fellow soldier of pro-Thaksin Major General Khattiya Sawasdiphol at the height of the 2010 redshirt demonstrations illustrated deep-seated divisions in the Royal Thai Army. Ockey asserts that the politicization of the military into color-coded factions has left the institution broken, divided and dangerous both to itself and to others (p. 72). This is a bold claim: to date, the latest coup has shown the capacity of the Eastern Tigers/Queen's Guard faction to dominate the army and subordinate internal contestation to the will of the top brass. …