Kingdom of Fear: Royal Governance under Thailand's King Vajiralongkorn

IF 2.4 2区社会学 Q1 AREA STUDIES

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs Pub Date : 2022-07-03 DOI:10.1177/18681034221111176

P. Chachavalpongpun

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引用次数: 2

Abstract

This article examines royal governance under King Maha Vajiralongkorn (Rama X) for the light it sheds on Thailand's recent political development. It is argued that the existence of “fear” defines Vajiralongkorn's relationship with the people. For members of the ruling class, fear keeps them in check. Within the palace, promotion and demotion are vital for control. The Royal Gazette (Rachakitjanubeksa) has become a platform for public humiliation that operates to inculcate fear. For the public, fear proliferates through a variety of means, including employing laws to punish critics of the monarchy, particularly the exploitation of lèse-majesté law, with the state's keen cooperation. But the 2020 protests, which demanded immediate monarchical reform, seriously challenged Vajiralongkorn's fear-based royal governance. The Thai case demonstrates that fear, a centuries-old form of governance used by many rulers to control their subjects, is no longer an effective tool of governance in modern, middle-class-driven, capitalist societies, like Thailand. Fear has a tendency to backfire on a sovereign if overused.

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恐惧王国:泰国国王哇集拉隆功统治下的皇家统治

本文考察了国王玛哈哇集拉隆功(拉玛十世)统治下的王室治理，以揭示泰国最近的政治发展。有人认为，“恐惧”的存在定义了哇集拉隆功与人民的关系。对于统治阶级的成员来说，恐惧使他们受到控制。在宫中，晋升和降职对控制至关重要。《皇家公报》(Rachakitjanubeksa)已成为公众羞辱的平台，其作用是灌输恐惧。对公众来说，恐惧通过各种方式扩散，包括在国家的密切配合下，利用法律来惩罚对君主制的批评者，尤其是对法律的利用。但要求立即进行君主制改革的2020年抗议活动，严重挑战了哇集拉隆功基于恐惧的王室统治。泰国的案例表明，在泰国这样的中产阶级驱动的现代资本主义社会，恐惧——许多统治者用来控制其臣民的一种有着数百年历史的治理形式——不再是一种有效的治理工具。如果过度使用恐惧，对主权国家来说往往会适得其反。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs Social Sciences-Political Science and International Relations

CiteScore

5.00

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

8 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, published by the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies (IAS) in Hamburg, is an internationally refereed journal. The publication focuses on current developments in international relations, politics, economics, society, education, environment and law in Southeast Asia. The topics covered should not only be oriented towards specialists in Southeast Asian affairs, but should also be of relevance to readers with a practical interest in the region. For more than three decades, the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs (formerly Südostasien aktuell) has regularly provided – six times per year and in German - insightful and in-depth analyses of current issues in political, social and economic life; culture; and development in Southeast Asia. It continues to be devoted to the transfer of scholarly insights to a wider audience and is the leading academic journal devoted exclusively to this region. Interested readers can access the abstracts and tables of contents of earlier issues of the journal via the webpage http://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publikationen/archiv.