Thailand. Thailand's political peasants: Power in the modern rural economy. By Andrew Walker. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012. Pp. 276. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Abstract

Thailand's political peasants: Power in the modern rural economy By ANDREW WALKER Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012. Pp. 276. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463414000228 Few scholars have perhaps done more than Andrew Walker in the last few decades to enhance our understanding of rural politics and society in Thailand. Drawing on his firsthand observations in one small village (which he calls Ban Tiam) of Chiang Mai Province, Walker makes another important and timely contribution in this book, offering a provocative analysis of profound political and socioeconomic changes that have engulfed rural Thailand. Walker's argument is that the Thai peasantry is not what it used to be or what many observers of Thailand think it is. Most peasants no longer fit the stereotyped images of dirt-poor, risk-averse people eking out precarious subsistence lives on the margins of Thailand's capitalist economy. They have now escaped absolute poverty by diversifying into, or experimenting with, risky profit-maximising cash cropping and contract farming, and by actively seeking temporary employment in nonagricultural sectors. They have become 'middle-income peasants' by adopting 'economically diversified and spatially dispersed livelihood strategies in which agricultural and non-agricultural pursuits are intertwined' (p. 75). According to Walker, the state has played a pivotal part in this transformation by subsidising, rather than taxing, rural economy, as exemplified by the policies of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It is true, Walker notes, that low agricultural productivity and 'relative' rural poverty remain serious problems, but that does not change the fact that state policies have by and large benefited the peasantry. The peasants naturally want the 'subsidising state' to continue to do what it has done for their livelihoods or to do even more. Their new political aspirations are reflected in the changing pattern of their interactions with the state. Instead of rebelling against the state or trying to keep it at bay as they once did, today's peasants seek to be tied to the state, so that they can maximise benefits from it in the form of construction projects, cash price subsidies, bank credits, health care, and so forth. Particularly illuminating in this respect is Walker's 'thick description', in chapter 6, of seemingly apolitical festivals, whereby villagers use the language of local community to make themselves appear eligible for state grants. The picture that emerges from this book is that the state is now increasingly compelled to address the multiple needs of the middle-income peasantry--'a major new player in the Thai political landscape' (p. 5). No politician, party, or institution that composes the state can afford to ignore this player; the tail no longer wags the dog. Through such lenses we can better understand Thaksin's resilient rural popularity, the emergence of the pro-peasant redshirt movement, and the resounding electoral victory of the Phuea Thai Party led by Thaksin's sister, Yingluck. Although some scholars might wince at Walker's use of the label 'peasants' to describe relatively well-to-do agricultural producers, this minor issue hardly detracts from the quality of his book. The book represents a refreshing departure from much of the existing literature that depict Thai (or Southeast Asian) peasants either as poorly educated pliant masses susceptible to elite manipulations (e.g., vote-buying) or as morally outraged Lilliputians who overtly or covertly resist encroachments of the capitalist state. …