PP !=Dd
Watching events unfold in Thailand over the past few weeks I have gradually edged over to the conclusion that People Power does not necessarily equal democracy. It is undeniably a necessary condition of democracy, but not alone sufficient. The month-long demonstrations in Thailand were able to force the elected Prime Minister out, and temporarily de-list the political parties of his governing caucus:
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | How did Thai protesters manage it? The demonstrations show that civil disobedience is certainly a key to power, but it left me feeling that, although I regarded that the good guys had won, these methods were not always a key to democracy. This People Power, toward its end was relentlessly organized, efficient, studiously non-violent. This observation is offered in passing contrast to the current demonstrations in Athens. The protests and sit-ins around Bangkok were the work of a group calling itself The Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD). The BBC has spent some effort putting together a series of pieces on this. The article linked earlier was the one that drew me in, I worked through other stories in the right-hand navigation column from there
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Q&A: Bangkok protests. Largely the membership and support base of the PAD seem to come from one of more familiar strains of modernism: A globalized middle class. Some time before these demonstrations started there was a commenter in a Metafilter thread trying to explain their grievance against the government. What was notable in this was the free use of shared precepts, outlooks and attitudes the writer assumed with the Metafilter audience. Looking a little deeper around the PAD you see a coalition of elites. These are composed of traditional elites such as Army, Monarchists, bureaucratic clerical class, and students who will in time become all the former. The PAD seems to regard these current events as the opening moves in a greater struggle for a new politics
Few gains in Thai protesters' 'final war' | csmonitor.com .
Against this is former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire populist, and all the political aspirants arrayed in that corner. Thaksin represents a segment of Thailand's elites as well: the business class, new money. His fortune is tied to a major telecommunication concern a prime element of the new economy. At the moment he is in exile in the UK, currently under charges of corruption, and abuses of power which could place him in jail if he returned to Thailand. His exile began in 2006 when the Thai Army staged a coup while he was in session at the United Nations. His stay in England is most noted for his owning Manchester City FC for a period. Running for public office in Thailand he formed a political base of disenfranchised. Additionally, and also significant he is originally a northerner from a part of the country away from the power center coastal cities. Believing the proposition that all politics are local. Local physically and temporally. I accept there is much to this which cannot be adequately understood from outside and abroad. Thailand is a mature society, and a nominal democracy. It is well into the process of structural change into an advanced economy which will leave it with multiple and balanced industrial sectors as a significant portion of the population moves out of subsistence agriculture into centers of manufacture and trade. What we see in Thailand is somewhat of a manufactured class antagonism. With an internal minority and/or sub-population identified and bound by national geography used to form a packaged electorate. Some would characterize it as a manipulated electorate, and therefore a contested majority. In as much as it resembles nothing more than the aged-from-antiquity farm people, city people divide this is unlikely. Talk of democracy often turns to the distinction between Big D and little d democracy. Principles against institutions, ideal against form. Big D Democracy, in full panoply is all of one man-one vote, secret ballots, candidates standing for office. Of the separation of powers into legislatures and judiciary. All the evolved institutions of western governance. Little d is just the simple idea of autonomy of the people and their rule over the social compact they formed. Implicit in any notion of democracy is rule by the majority of the people. In accordance with other rules of legitimacy. Promulgation of laws in a open non arbitrary proceedings. That the will of the people is not inferred assigned or otherwise guessed at, but made manifest. It's hard to see that shutting down a major international airport and holding a central economic sector (tourism) hostage to political demands in imitation of a protection racket improves upon formal elections.
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