Uninformed on Thailand

The National Bureau of Asian Research is a U.S. think tank funded by grants from the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and the Boeing Company. It claims independence and academic credentials. It has a program for providing broad policy-related advice and information. Like many such organizations in the U.S., it provides linkages between academia and the offices of government.

Catharin Dalpino is one of those who slips about Washington, sliding between academia and government and is listed in several foundations and think tanks as an expert on Southeast Asia and Thailand. Recently she became Warburg Professor in International Relations at Simmons College. Read about her career as a point person on Thailand here. But scroll down to her publications and it is clear that she is not an academic with many years of publishing with academic presses and journals. It is her links that seem to count more than the usual measures of academic success. Indeed, she lacks a Ph.D., the usual qualification for academic appointment.

Significantly, Dalpino is often considered in think tank circles as some kind of expert on Thailand, despite the lack of significant research and academic publications. Her views appear to carry some weight.

When Dalpino and the NBR get together, people will take note. In her most recent interview with NBR, she has observations on the election. Some of her comments deserve attention.

On the election outcome, Dalpino begins by saying: “Pheu Thai had been tipped in the polls to win at least a plurality in the elections.” She’s essentially wrong. Bangkok Pundit has the story on polling, which generally had Puea Thai ahead throughout and predicted a majority. We might add that Thaksin Shinawatra was accurate in his predictions.

The Dalpino gets testy on the result: “ The Election Commission has not yet certified the results and will likely not do so until August, and so we do not know at this point what the final tally will be. However, preliminary post-election reporting holds that Pheu Thai has won a majority…”. Well, yes… but isn’t this all a bit understated? It has been acknowledged everywhere that this was a thumping Puea Thai victory.

Why is Dalpino so ambivalent? Our guess is because Dalpino is bitterly disappointed that her buddies in the elite were trounced by the rough lot voting for Puea Thai. Dalpino really likes the Democrat Party, considers its leader friends of the U.S. and is close to the palace. So she joins that elite lot in downplaying the significance of the fact that her favored party simply never gets elected.

She makes other errors such as saying the Democrat Party “traditionally wins in the south.” Only if “traditional” means in the past few elections.

Dalpino then manages this clanger: “The reaction to the election results by Thai military leaders suggests that the military is more focused on assuming a professional role than a political one.” On this, we think she’s been asleep for much of the election campaign and the period since the 2006 coup. Nothing could be further from the truth.

More poor interpretation follows when Dalpino determines that “some analysts had perceived the Democrat Party (Abhisit’s party) to be on the yellow shirt side because of its opposition to parties affiliated with Thaksin. In reality, it had a much more independent position, as yellow shirt leaders soon discovered when the Abhisit government assumed power.” Again, she is misinformed or she is deliberately making this up. The Democrat Party was exceptionally close to PAD, and took up much of PAD’s political agenda. The party pursued very few cases against PAD leaders.

She also misses the wide support for Puea Thai in the central region when she says that the south and central regions supported parties other than Puea Thai. Likewise she misses how close the vote was in Bangkok. She then adopts Democrat Party rhetoric to attack Puea Thai election promises.

Is she asleep at the wheel, uniformed or politically motivated? PPT thinks it is all three, and the reasons for policy units and think tanks taking her seriously can only be reflective of those places wanting to hear something other than the real story on Thailand.  We imagine the U.S. Ambassador in Bangkok would really like her.

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