Abstract
Since the 2006 military coup, the growing inequalities in Thailand’s political consciousness are still uncharted, especially among the nation’s youth who are inheriting the consequences of an increasingly bifurcated society. This study juxtaposes 250 interviews, surveys, and mental mapping exercises with Thai emerging adults in Bangkok and in suburban provinces to complicate simplistic binary divisions between urban and rural political opinion in post-coup Thailand. This paper argues that many suburban adolescents stress democracy’s perceptual links to a uniting equality while many urban adolescents conceptually link democracy to majority rule. In the context of globalization, these conceptual conflicts reveal an intimate linkage of political inequality to global patterns of urbanization. These findings suggest subtle conceptual fault lines separating urban and suburban Thai youth, providing critical insights into the political inequalities emerging in a rapidly divided nation.
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Notes
- 1.
This brass spike, buried near the King Chulalongkorn monument is engraved in Thai, “at this place, 24 June 2475 (1932), dawn, the Khana Ratsadon (People’s Party) constituted a constitution for the development of the country.”
- 2.
These five Bangkok public universities were Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Kasetsart University, Srinakharinwirot University, and Ramkhamhaeng University.
- 3.
The urban high school and college students were from Nakhonpathom Rajabhat Demonstration School, Mahidol Wittayanusorn School, and Nakhonpathom Rajabhat University. The suburban students and young adults were from Wittayalay Naatasin fine arts school, the Mahidol Wittayanusorn campus, and the nearby suburban area of Salaya in Nakhon Pathom province.
- 4.
Thai political protests and riots between the Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts started in 2005 during Thaksin Shinawatra’s term as Prime Minister. During that time, “the People’s Alliance for Democracy” also known as the Yellow Shirts (generalized as Bangkok urbanites) began a public opposition to the former Prime Minister and the Red Shirts (generalized as Thaksin supporters from rural areas in the North, Northeast and East of Thailand). Based on spatial-temporal factors during the urban portion of our research, many of the adolescents we interviewed self-identified as Yellow Shirts, although a smaller number identified themselves as Red Shirts.
- 5.
Chulalongkorn University is the most highly ranked national university in Thailand. However, it is also assumed that students there generally come from wealthy families who can fund tuition and access to materials for entrance examinations.
- 6.
This case refers to a young girl from a famous wealthy family who drove without a license and killed nine public van passengers, generating national media attention.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the grant no. 01UC0906 and the Chulalongkorn University Centenary Academic Development Project. Preliminary analysis from the initial urban portion of this research appeared in the Occasional Paper Series in Southeast Asian Studies at Freiburg (Chulanee 2012). This article would not have been possible without the assistance of the Faculty of Political Science of Chulalongkorn University, Prof. Supachai Yavaprabhas (Chulalongkorn University), Prof. Judith Schlehe (University of Freiburg), Emma Masterson (University of Freiburg), and most importantly, the Thai young adults who gave their time and trust to participate in this research project.
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Haanstad, E., Thianthai, C. (2015). Unifying Equality or Majority Rule: Conflicting Democratic Conceptions among Thai Adolescents in the City and Suburbs. In: Lenger, A., Schumacher, F. (eds) Understanding the Dynamics of Global Inequality. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44766-6_5
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