Visible presence, unseen hand: Royalty and reality in the reshaping of Bangkok

Abstract

This article addresses royal agency in the current urban development of Bangkok. During the reign of King Bhumibol, the image of the just and generous monarch who followed the precepts of dharma was assiduously maintained and visibly promoted. Despite the palace’s known control of great wealth, the king’s embrace of moderation as Buddhist virtue (‘sufficiency economy’) in the face of the consumerism represented by Thaksin Shinawatra and his followers had considerable appeal. During this period, the image of charitable leadership was also maintained in the Crown Property Bureau’s policy of charging low rents in the heart of the old city of Bangkok. Yet even before the reign’s end, signs of a new vision were emerging. Evictions and gentrification have accelerated; a scheme to create an environmentally and socially disastrous boardwalk on the Chao Praya was narrowly averted; traces of both pre-modern and modern alternatives to the ethnonational state pursued by the military leadership in the name of the monarchy disappear ever faster. Do such attempts at planning reflect royal policy, or is a military clique manipulating the royal image for economic advantage? The continuing silence over the agency of urban change and the stereotype of Thai culture as conflict averse and inclined to compromise protect powerful interests. The difficulty of identifying the precise sources of current urban policy discourages political challenge despite indications that young people are rejecting hitherto carefully inculcated habits of thought and bodily comportment and are adopting a more critical stance with still unpredictable outcomes.