Disguised Republic and Virtual Absolutism: Two Inherent Conflicting Tendencies in the Thai Constitutional Monarchy

Abstract

The current inclination towards monarchical absolutism of the Thai government and politics is in essence the actualization of one of the two conflicting tendencies that have been inherent in Thai constitutional monarchy from the start. I intend to trace the political and scholarly discourse about them at some key junctures in modern Thai history. My main argument is that it had been the royal hegemony of King Rama IX that managed to maintain a relatively stable if tilted balance between the opposing principles of monarchy and democracy and keep the two opposite tendencies at bay. The perceived threat of a disguised republic under the Thaksin regime and the waning of royal hegemony led to a hyper-royalist reaction from the monarchical network that disrupted the pre-existing balance and prepared a potential ground for a virtual absolutism which has been taken over and actualized under the present regime.