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  • News & article

    Reforms need broadening of the agenda

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 25/09/2020

    » Thailand's student-led protest movement for overdue political change and reforms has reached a crucial juncture. In the aftermath of its most recent demonstration on Sept 19 at Sanam Luang public ground and open field in front of the Grand Palace in Bangkok's old town, the protest agenda can be seen as either zooming in directly on monarchical reform or emanating more from the side and down below on broader institutional changes that include the monarchy.

  • News & article

    Asean must unite to resolve Covid-19

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/03/2020

    » As the Covid-19 pandemic runs its course and wreaks havoc worldwide, the numbers look bleak. Nearly 500,000 people have been infected, and more than 21,000 had died as of Thursday. The international system has reverted to every country for itself, as borders have gone up and globalisation has come down. The world as we knew it is unlikely to be the same, but regions as they were remain relevant. Here, Asean, as Southeast Asia's regional bloc, must face up to the crisis together or risk being torn apart by it.

  • News & article

    Asean chairmanship has many limitations

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 16/11/2018

    » Just as all politics is ultimately local, all regionalism is mostly domestic. Such is the case with Asean. Whichever of the 10 member states chairs Asean, its role and performance tends to be domestically rooted. To envision and drive Asean forward requires deft leadership, bold ideas and smart diplomacy that must extend beyond and transcend parochial domestic concerns. No Asean member has shown this sort of farsighted regionalist ambition in recent years. Thailand appears on course to be no different when it chairs Asia's most durable organisation next year.

  • News & article

    Thai authoritarianism: past and present

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 22/08/2014

    » Thailand’s political pendulum has swung wildly. It has now completed a dramatic reversal, pitting the electoral authoritarianism of Thaksin Shinawatra from the early 2000s against the thinly veiled dictatorship of General Prayuth Chan-ocha in the mid-2010s.

  • News & article

    Public must own anti-corruption drive

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/06/2014

    » As Thailand’s fate is being determined by a military intervention in politics that will either be a necessary detour or a dangerous descent from democratic rule, the performance and track record of the self-empowered military authorities are critical for any semblance of political legitimacy.

  • News & article

    The roots of global democratic malaise

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 14/01/2014

    » The early 21st century is harbouring an alarming trend in emerging democracies. As political liberalisation and democratisation make headway, they have ended up polarising and splitting societies undergoing democratic transitions. This trend is likely to dominate the developing world for the next two decades and beyond.

  • News & article

    Policy momentum flounders after amnesty debacle

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 15/11/2013

    » Even before its peddlers in parliament made a panicky retreat, the expansive amnesty bill to absolve all those involved in Thailand's political conflict going back to 2004 already yielded longer-term ramifications.

  • News & article

    Street rallies yield to parliamentary process

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 09/08/2013

    » It felt like deja vu for a while. As parliament reconvened, anti-government columns lined up, ready to rumble and depose the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, this time under a new rubric called the People's Democratic Force to Overthrow Thaksinism (Pefot).

  • News & article

    Changing our education timetable is a really dumb idea

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/09/2013

    » It has become a cliche to say that Thailand's education system needs an overhaul. From the coloured political divide and industrial upgrading to broader economic competitiveness, it is said that education is the root cause of the country's political and socio-economic ills. This is not untrue. Symptomatic of these education woes and defects are the confusion and contradictions among bureaucrats and administrators over the timetable for the next school year. Thai kids are not only being taught poorly but they are not even sure when to go to school again after the summer recess.

  • News & article

    Recalibrating majority rule, minority rights

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 14/06/2013

    » From Turkey to Thailand and elsewhere where political legitimacy derives from electoral democracy, the relationship between majority rule and minority rights has become problematic and in need of recalibration. If a more effective majoring-minority moving balance is not found, electoral democracy is likely to be discredited and undermined to the detriment of societies it was cultivated and designed to govern.

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