Seminar with Duncan McCargo, Professor of Southeast Asian Politics, University of Leeds.
Chronic political instability in Thailand - which has seen three general elections, a military coup, a new constitution, successive waves of massive street protests, and six prime ministers since April 2006 - is a source of anxiety both at home, and for Thailand's regional neighbours. Such anxieties reached new heights during the abortive 2009 ASEAN summit in Pattaya - when the Chinese and Japanese premiers had to be rescued from their hotel by helicopter - and recently as a result of ongoing violent clashes along the Thai-Cambodian border.
In this presentation, Duncan McCargo will discuss the state of play for the competing power networks in Thailand in the wake of the 3 July 2011 general election, the fifth successive elections convincingly won by parties associated with the self-exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
What kind of political options does Thailand face at this crucial juncture, and what will they mean both domestically and for the wider region?
Duncan McCargo is Professor of Southeast Asian Politics at the University of Leeds, and has published nine books. Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (2008) won the inaugural 2009 Bernard Schwartz Book Prize awarded by the Asia Society of New York. His Mapping National Anxieties: Thailand's Southern Conflict has just been published by NIAS Press in Copenhagen.
Facilitator: Stein Tønnesson, Research Professor, PRIO
Registration : http://www.polyteknisk.no/Moeter/Thailands-post-electoral-predicament
In cooperation with the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
