Thailand’s 2020–2021 Pro-Democracy Protests: Diversity, Conflict, and Solidarity

Abstract

Beyond its popular characterisation as an “anti-monarchy youth movement,” Thailand’s 2020–2021 pro-democracy movement brought together a diverse range of agendas, including feminism, poverty, and education reform along with shared political demands. This article explores these different agendas, their relationship to the protests, and their implications for the collective identity of democracy protestors. Drawing from 17 in-depth interviews with protestors, it was found that the protests were not only a platform to express political positions but also for pedagogical socialisation, where protestors learned about different social issues and the struggles of other protestors. These processes led them to understand authoritarianism and democracy with a structural lens, where in addition to authoritarian government and the monarchy, the protestors aim to uproot various institutions exercising practices or cultures resembling that of the authoritarian regime. Their understanding of democracy was similarly expansive, going beyond parliamentary politics to accommodate issues within their daily lived experience. The protestors retained a sense of solidarity by conceiving of democracy as necessarily entailing a diversity of views and subsequently disagreements and conflicts. The protestors’ structural approach means the 2020–2021 protests were unique and a novel development from previous protests in Thailand.