Thailand and much more

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, editor of the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia (KRSEA), published with the financial support of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University, has brought three years of articles together in a new book.

For those who want a copy of the book, download it here, for free. It is over 100MB.

It includes articles on Thailand and much, much more.His advertising states:

We have compiled all the English articles from Issue 13 (March 2013), to Issue 20 (September 2016). This period marked a turning point for KRSEA with the re-launch of the website in March 2013 and the new online archive of earlier issues. That was when I was assigned as the chief editor of the KRSEA.

Looking back to the original KRSEA, it was launched in March 2002 by CSEAS to promote exchange among the intellectual communities of Southeast Asia. The primary goal was to bring news of important publications, debates, and ideas into region-wide circulation through lively and accessible writing. It also wanted to encourage more sustained engagement between university-based intellectuals and those working in NGOs, journalism, and cultural production. Those ambitions are still at the root of today’s publication.

The KRSEA Committee recognizes that mutual inaccessibility of national languages is an arduous barrier in deepening the knowledge of neighbouring countries. To address this, we use translation to facilitate informed discussion. All thematic articles are translated into the national languages of selected Southeast Asian states, for now Thai and Bahasa Indonesia, as well as two languages, English and Japanese. It is the only journal, which carries articles in four languages. We plan to add more languages to the translations, possibly Vietnamese and Burmese in the near future. However, in the volume, we only include the English version of all articles.

…Moreover, there is a new column, Young Academic’s Voice, launched in September 2013, to promote works among young intellectuals who conduct research on Southeast Asia. We provide a platform for them to disseminate their work through our extensive networks across the globe. With KRSEA being an online journal, we pay special attention to bring visibility to this writing. The fast development of the cyber community allows KRSEA to connect with readers in many ways. The impressive statistics of those visiting our website each quarter is a testament of how the Internet is vital to the future of knowledge dissemination.

 

Academics on post-coup Thailand

PPT has snipped this post from the Journal of Contemporary Asia. We have previously posted on a couple of these articles. Most are behind a paywall, with two articles being free:

Issue 3 of Volume 46 (2016) has gone to print and the issue is available electronically at the publisher’s site (with two articles available for free download). This is a Special Issue titled: Military, Monarchy and Repression: Assessing Thailand’s Authoritarian Turn. The details are:

“Introduction: Understanding Thailand’s Politics” by Veerayooth Kanchoochat & Kevin Hewison (free download).

The 2014 Thai Coup and Some Roots of Authoritarianism by Chris Baker.

Inequality, Wealth and Thailand’s Politics by Pasuk Phongpaichit.

The Resilience of Monarchised Military in Thailand by Paul Chambers & Napisa Waitoolkiat.

Thailand’s Deep State, Royal Power and the Constitutional Court (1997–2015) by Eugénie Mérieau (free download)

Thailand’s Failed 2014 Election: The Anti-Election Movement, Violence and Democratic Breakdown by Prajak Kongkirati.

Rural Transformations and Democracy in Northeast Thailand by Somchai Phatharathananunth.

Redefining Democratic Discourse in Thailand’s Civil Society by Thorn Pitidol.

The issue includes five book reviews.

Publications of interest II

Following from our earlier post on interesting reading, another reader has suggested that the site whereisthailand.info is worth a visit. PPT recommends some of the analysis at the site, particularly its post on the regional expenditure of government budget. There’s a brief English summary of the data here.

The associated chart (below) explains the situation pretty well:

Kill the undemocratic constitution

At The Irrawaddy a day or so ago, there was a story that has a Thailand ring about it. The main point is that:

the one issue that surely stands as the most important if Burma is finally to takes its rightful place as an equal in the community of nations. That issue is the 2008 Constitution—or rather, the need to scrap it in favor of a genuinely democratic charter.

That constitution, like Thailand’s 2007 version, was put in place by the military and was meant to entrench the military’s political power. Thailand’s version was meant to entrench the power of the conservative royalist elite.

In neither country has the rigged constitution been unchallenged and voters have been persistent in showing their desire for something more than the conservatives want to allow.

The article states that “[w]ith the exception of this handful of excessively privileged individuals, however, everyone else … knows that the country needs sweeping change, not just a fine-tuning of the established order.” In the article the business community is mentioned. In Thailand, the desire for change is broader, as it is in Burma.

The author concludes that “the only way to put power where it belongs—in the hands of the people—is by completely rewriting the Constitution.” That could easily be a comment on Thailand.