Thai Culture and Thai Political Culture

Thai Culture and Thai Political Culture Robert B. Albritton Thawilwadee Bureekul National cultures are not unique. Except for superficial aspects of a social group, they are limited to language and the constructed common history of an “imagined community.” As Benedict Anderson (1991) and others have noted, the notion of states, regions, and cultures are “imagined,” that is, constructs that may be more or less useful for understanding differences among peoples encountered in the interactions of global society. But, as Anderson has also noted, these constructs usually include a multiplicity of cultures and values that may not be at all homogeneous within the boundaries of the imagined community. This considerable variation of cultures within nations and regions provokes scholars to rely on stereotypes that may represent only a fragmented, even a skewed, version of the population in the geographic area of interest. Thailand is a case in point, composed of a multiplicity of cultures represented by sub-national regions and languages. Isan and Lanna-Thai cultures each vary significantly from those of the central Thai (including Bangkok) and southern Thai, a dialect virtually incomprehensible to most Thais, that is, according to a serious scholar of the Thai language,1 more remote from standard Thai than Lao. In three of the southern provinces, the major language of the home is Malay. To the extent that language is a significant marker of culture, what are treated as homogeneous geographic regions represent highly diverse social, political, and cultural orientations (Albritton and Prabudhanitisan, 1997). Chinese ancestry also provides a powerful cultural seasoning that differs from the larger native Thai population, more dramatically from Malay-Islamic citizens, but is diffuse 1 John Hartman of Northern Illinois University in a conversation with one of the authors. 1 within the nation and not identifiable with a specific geography. Some scholars have demonstrated that urban-rural cleavages are probably even more significant as culture shapers in developing societies, and SES, or class, is highly related to tendencies to develop traditionalistic or modernistic approaches to social values. A recent colloquy in the Bangkok Post, stimulated by an article by Voranai Vanijaka (2/7/2010), underlines the diversities of regional ethnicities, religions, and languages within Thailand, so diverse that many citizens cannot even understand the languages of the “others.” Even the religion, Buddhism, the Ramayana myths, the dances, the “shadow puppets,” and other practices of “high culture” are either borrowed from peoples of what are now other nations or at least shared with cultures other than Thai.2 Because these traits are so diverse by region, we shall also examine some of these differences as they occur across the five regions of Thailand as a way of elaborating the theme of cultural diversity. When culture is extrapolated to a broader context (Huntington, 1996), national and regional comparisons border on absurdity. Value comparisons among Asian nations show significant differences simply among the Asian nations. Generalities about the role of Asian values as an engine of economic development evaporate with the collapse of regional economies in the late 1990s, and the converse stereotype that Asian values are associated with corruption and cronyism seem to ignore (conveniently for the purpose of generalizing) that the United States has only recently emerged from the collapse of financial institutions as a result of general corruption and cronyism that pales Thailand by 2 We will omit the debates about the fact that what is now Laos and part of Cambodia was a part of Siam until it was ceded to the French in the late 19th century. We also leave to others the debate about the fact that the largest linguistic group in Thailand is closer to Lao (Isan) than to the official language (Central Thai). 2 comparison. Lest anyone hold a view that Asians have a propensity for corruption in business operations, we should develop a mantra to refresh our memory: “Enron, Enron……..World Com, World Com.” Cultures and political cultures also change over time. Nidhi Eoseewong’s analysis of “Thai-style Democracy” persuasively argues that most characteristics of contemporary Thai political culture, specifically the centralization of power with the king as the only head of the administration, actually date only from the reign of King Rama V. The absolute monarchy established in this reign represents a sharp diversion from political culture of the “village democracies” that existed prior to the centralization of administration under a newly established, middle-class bureaucracy. Other discussions of political culture (and especially Thai political culture studies) are mentioned in a study by Marc Askew (2006) as an introduction to a more focused study of elections in Hat Yai occurring in 2004. Apart from a provocative summary of disciplinary approaches to studying political culture, Askew draws lessons for understanding the concept, as well as drawing conclusions about the phenomenon itself. These conclusions suggest that: 1. Traditional approaches to the study of political culture, such as the pioneering work of Almond and Verba (The Civic Culture) positing national cultures, represent generalities, that, for example, although making room for “Thai culture,” are not sustainable when the diversities of social and geographic cultures within nations are recognized. 2. Historically-based discussions that find culture in the development of institutions and processes are too static to provide more than spot-based 3 generalities that do not persist into a more contemporary era. It is more productive to consider these as expressions of earlier cultures rather than the existing culture itself. In many respects, the linkage of political culture to institutions and processes represents an unsustainable inferential leap. To the extent that political culture is inferred from institutions and processes it is tautological.3 3. One feature that emerges in Askew’s analysis is that the discourses about Thai culture are shaped by normative orientations toward democratization. Thus, values that do not fit liberal democratic models, that include, for example, patronage, are relegated to “traditional” political cultures. Suchit (1996) distinguishes between what he regards as “traditional” versus “modern” cultural norms being more or less conducive to democratic development. More expressly, Callahan (1996) contrasts a “culture” that supports votebuying (traditional) with one that encourages popular political participation (modern) as an alternative to patronage politics. 4. Finally, Askew notes the feature of phuak (group or “clique”) that characterize Thai politics. This specific cultural phenomenon extends well beyond politics in Thailand, and, actually, is not very different from the models of “machine politics” that were prominent until the last few decades in American politics. These models are based on universally admired values, such as loyalty, but the roots are often shallow and defections occur when phuak leadership becomes vulnerable. 3 Where are the data that define political culture? The institutions and processes. What produces the institutions and processes? The political culture. 4 Askew’s characterization of the discourses over political culture is that there are a multiplicity of “cultures” that are necessary for representation of a more realistic and complete picture. As far as cultural norms are concerned, it seems that at any level of analysis it is necessary to incorporate multiple dimensions of political culture, whether of nations, sub-national units of governance, or even individuals that combine different dimensions of political culture in a single unit. A deeper exploration of the subject of political culture as it exists in Thailand requires models that reflect some degree of multidimensionality embedded in whatever may be the unit of analysis. To be clear, this paper does not adopt a view that culture does not matter. We do adopt a perspective that cultural values are not distinctive markers of national identities. When Geertz asserts that “a country’s politics reflect the design of its culture” (1972, 319), the question of a “national” culture is an open one that we challenge here. Traditional cultures thrive in more rural societies, whereas modernistic traits are associated with higher levels of security in both an economic and physical sense. Rather than attributing personal success to cultural values, as the literature on Asian cultures sometimes suggests, we argue that the evolution of cultural values is a product of a rise in socioeconomic status, and other contextual components, specifically shared cultures of urban and rural life often represented as regional differences. In contrast to much of the discourse on political culture, this study takes a position that the concept requires a focus on orientations of individuals to their governments. In this respect, culture – but especially political culture – is located at the individual level but may be aggregated to larger units, such as family, community, and nation. In fact, individuals may adhere to different cultural orientations, to varying degrees 5 simultaneously. A citizen may adhere strongly to a belief in electoral democracy, but, at the same time believe in strong and efficient government in ways that seemingly compromise democratic ideals. One productive approach for studying political cultures of Asia comes from the series of polls taken in the context of the Asian Barometer that now includes thirteen Asian nations and two waves (2002 and 2006). Although the survey questions are taken from general concepts of similar regional surveys in Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia (East, South, and Southeast), and the Middle East, the Asian Barometer project is sponsored and constructed by Asians (Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University in Taiwan) and includes scholarly teams from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand (KPI), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia. Applications of general theories and concepts implies that each country is located on a continuum of concepts, such as “trust in government” or “adherence to democracy,” and, therefore, is not unique in that each one is located at some point within a common framework of analysis. To date, even non-democratic systems conform, in some degree, to concepts applied across these nations. There are also, for example, cultural differences between urban and rural society that have an impact on attitudes toward governments. People living in rural areas live a significantly more precarious existence. Their livelihood is constantly threatened by nature and they are exposed to lack of personal security in a significantly more anarchic society. This leads to a greater dependence upon social networks for “getting by” in life and, as in almost any society, rural dwellers are significantly more communal, as well as being interested in the welfare of their neighbors (which can be either positive of 6 negative, from some perspectives). Urban dwellers live in an environment in which they are more autonomous, isolated, and individualistic, relishing the anonymity presented by urban life. For these urbanites (and suburbanites), individual independence from society and government leads to a greater interest in protections from government interference that we often associate with what are generally described as “civil liberties.” These divergences between urban and rural populations appear to have significant impacts on how government is viewed by individuals living in these two contexts, rural dwellers opting for security and urban dwellers for freedom. It is important to note, however, that virtually all societies idealize and celebrate rural culture so that it persists long after populations become urbanized. In the Thai context, scholars have noted disparities in approaches to government based upon urban-rural cleavages within society, not only class or status. Anek Laothamatas (1996) suggests that the most fundamental cleavage operating in Thai democracy is the sharp differences in political culture between Bangkok and the rural hinterland. Thailand is a tale of two democracies: one, of sophisticated urban elites (with origins or current residency in Bangkok), the other rural, often isolated, parochial interests that view political activity, especially elections, as opportunities for personal gain. Among other differences between urban and rural constituencies is that (according to the “urban” view): Voting in farming areas is not guided by political principles, policy issues, or what is perceived to be in the national interest, all of which is (regarded as) the only legitimate rationale for citizens casting their ballots in a democratic election. The ideal candidates for rural voters are those who visit them often, 7 address their immediate grievances effectively, and bring numerous public works to their communities (202). The ability of rural constituencies to acquire substantial political power in the parliament under conditions of electoral democracy often leads to doubts among members of the middle class, the upper class, the mass media, and even academics as to the efficacy of the democratic process. For these groups, “democracy turns out to be the rule of the corrupt and incompetent” (Laothamatas, 208). This puts them in a dilemma: although they oppose authoritarian rule in principle, they hold representatives from rural constituencies in contempt, regarding them as “parochial in outlook, boorish in manner, and too uneducated to be competent lawmakers of cabinet members” (Laothamatas, 208). The problem is that urban, educated, cosmopolitan candidates, who are skilled policy experts, are often held in equal contempt by villagers. They are often regarded as being alien to rural electorates in terms of taste, culture, and outlook, who “fail to stay close to the voters in both a physical and cultural sense” (Laothamatas, 208). Veiled contempt for rural-dwellers by sophisticated Bangkok elites posed no problem under authoritarian regimes. Once democratic elections tipped the balance in favor of rural areas, however, significant gaps in perceptions of and commitments to democracy have developed. These cleavages have, over the past decade, produced considerable political conflict that recently seemed to be abating, but erupted again with a military coup in 2006. Laothamatas argues that this fundamental conflict cannot be resolved until the middle class accepts alternative versions of democracy that make room for 8 understandings and aspirations of rural voters, especially the need for the rural poor to draw benefits away from the center and distribute them toward rural areas. “Ideally, patron-client ties might be replaced by a more responsive and effective system of local government. On top of that, voters are to be convinced that principle or policy-oriented voting brings them greater benefits than what they may get from local patrons” (Laothamatas, 223). There is, also, growing evidence that, while the middle class opposes authoritarian forms of government that restrict individual freedoms and exercise a heavy hand over commerce, the uncertainty of changes in government, even by democratic processes, is often viewed as destabilizing the economic environment on which entrepreneurs depend. The possibility that government may be seized by politicians with “populist” agendas poses an even more direct threat to the interests of a class that stands significantly above the average voter in Thai elections. In the Thai context the traditional emphasis on the “middle class” as an engine of democracy appears to be declining in favor of a view that middle-class support for democracy exists primarily when it coincides with class interests in curbing the power of government. This means that one cannot expect middle-class enthusiasm for democracy when it poses conflicts with private interests of the middle class. This latter view is expressed both by Laothamatas (1996), who argues that the 1991 coup could not have been sustained except for support from the middle class, and Chaianan Samudavanija (1998), who notes that the role of the middle class in Thailand, vis- a-vis democracy, has been “reactive rather than proactive” (156) and that its primary interest in democracy has been “to safeguard their own freedom and the freedom of the market” (158). 9 This study begins with a fundamental assumption that attitudes toward government are diverse by class and by rural-urban sector in Thailand and examines equally diverse values within the Thai nation that contribute to such diverse understandings. The explanations of these diversities require further analysis, but we offer tentative elaborations of the factors associated with both rural-urban and class cleavages that seem to mark significantly different emphases in approaches to government, much as Laothamatas describes. Aspects of Thai Culture that Contribute to the Formation of Thai Political Culture Results of polls on which this study is based reinforce an analysis that, contrary to conventional wisdom about Asians, Thais are very individualistic people in their orientations to their own lives and to society at large (Piker, 1979; Unger, 1998). Table 1 offers data showing that Thais are highly individualistic in their approaches to life. Further analysis indicates that roughly 70 percent of all Thais either were not members of any formal organization or inactive in 2002. When specific questions related to types of organizations are asked, the results are the same. The numbers of memberships in fact are so small that, although the percent of “actives” is greater in Bangkok than in other areas, the differences are non-significant. ________________________________________________________________________ Table 1: Individualism in Thai Identity, WVS (2007) I seek to be myself rather than follow other people. Frequency Percent Valid Cumulative Percent Percent Valid strongly 531 34.6 34.8 34.8 agree agree 860 56.1 56.4 91.3 disagree 128 8.3 8.4 99.7 strongly 5 .3 .3 100.0 10 disagree Total Missing System Total 1524 10 1534 99.3 .7 100.0 100.0 I see myself as an individual Frequency Percent . Valid strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree Total Missing System Total 46 3.0 Valid Percent 3.0 625 677 184 40.7 44.1 12.0 40.8 44.2 12.0 1532 2 1534 99.9 .1 100.0 100.0 Cumulative Percent 3.0 43.8 88.0 100.0 It is not surprising, then, that organizational membership in Thai society is low. Only 39.1 percent of Thai respondents claimed membership in any formal organization in 2002 (Table 2). When informal associations in groups are the subject of discussion, 39.1 percent claim to socialize with others in group activity (Table 2). The overwhelming proportion of formal memberships is accounted for by residential associations (21.7 percent) and agricultural associations (17.0 percent). By 2006, 75.9 percent of all Thais indicated that they were not members of any association. Trade association, labor union, volunteer group, and citizen movement activity is negligible. Political memberships appear among the lowest of the possible associations (Table 3). The profile of Thai citizens represented by this indicator suggests that civil society in Thailand is relatively weak. In addition, the residential and agricultural associations which comprise the bulk of Thai civic participation are often required by residential or agricultural groups as a 11 condition of receiving tangible benefits. Scholars will recognize the effectiveness of groups that offer private, rather than collective benefits, as incentives for organizing associations. This perspective appears significant for the formation of Thai civil society groups, ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE 2: Percent Claiming Formal and Informal Affiliations in Civil Society Associations (2002) ________________________________________________________________________ Percent Yes Percent No Formal Associations 39.1 60.9 Informal Associations 13.5 86.5 ________________________________________________________________________ N=1546 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE 3: Affiliations of Thai Respondents with Formal and Informal Groups Representing Civil Society. (2002) N=1546 ________________________________________________________________________ Percent Reporting Affiliation Formal Associations: Residential Associations Agricultural Associations Volunteer Groups Religious Groups PTAs Political Parties Alumni Associations Sports or Leisure Club Producer cooperatives Citizen Movements (NGOs) Trade Associations Candidate Support Organizations Labor Unions 21.7 17.0 2.8 2.7 1.8 1.7 1.1 1.0 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.3 12 Consumer Cooperatives 0.1 Informal Associations: Colleagues Who Interact Outside Work 3.5 Groups at Community Schools 2.3 Friends Who Exchange Information 2.3 Friends Who Do Business 2.1 Friends Who Share Hobbies 1.1 Informal Credit or Loan Associations 1.1 ________________________________________________________________________ These data require a frame of reference in order to put them in perspective. Are these levels of citizen participation in civil society associations low? Putnam cites the General Social Survey and other studies indicating that membership in organizations in the United States declined to a little less than 70 percent by the early 1990s (2000:59) and, by comparison with ten other Asian nations in 2006, only Hong Kong and South Korea had lower levels of citizen participation in either formal or informal groups. By this comparison, civil society in Thailand is weak, indeed. The fact that the Thai public is not characterized by “affiliators” has its impact on the relationship between citizens and their government. The thesis of Putnam’s work is that social capital, in the form of civil society, provides some of the necessary underpinnings of democracy. He argues that voluntary associations are “schools of democracy” and that participation in such associations provides the basis for involvement in political life (2000: 339). The logic of his argument leads to a hypothesis that people who are associated with voluntary organizations are more likely to have the skills and interest to participate in politics, and that civil society leads to participation in political society. The data of this study permit testing of this hypothesis. We construct a measure of political participation by summing responses to seven questions: Did the respondent vote 13 in recent Senate and Parliamentary elections (2 questions), and whether they engaged in three other specific activities. The other two questions indicate whether respondents are interested in politics and how often they follow news about politics. When this measure of political participation is regressed on scores of membership in both formal and informal groups, the results show significant levels of association (Table 4). The broad affirmation of membership in groups in general has a stronger correlation with the political participation index than the measure constructed from summing the individual associations.4 In both cases, however, it is membership in formal organizations that appears to produce higher levels of political participation. Informal associations (that could include bowling activities) have negligible impacts on political activity. ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE 4: Effects of Civil Society Participation on Individual Political Participation (2002) ________________________________________________________________________ Regression Coefficient t-test Sig. of t R General Group Association .431 8.961 .000 Total Formal and Informal Group Associations .208 6.857 .000 .18 1467 Formal Group Associations .276 7.279 .000 .19 1467 Informal Associations .192 2.532 .011 N .23 1467 .07 1467 ________________________________________________________________________ 4 The reader must recognize that while this association is strong, the level of group memberships is low. 14 Previous studies of the Thai electorate (Albritton and Bureekul, 2002) indicate that the strongest explanation of political participation is respondent’s sense of political efficacy. Table 5 represents an effort to improve the explanation of political participation by adding a summed indicator of political efficacy to the equation. In addition, the equation includes the measure of rural-urban location noted previously. The results show considerable improvement in the explanation of political involvement when these variables are added to the equation. Political efficacy, as expected, is the strongest of the three variables, but not by much. Membership in associations is also a highly significant predictor of political participation and the ruralurban indicator is not far behind. The high levels of statistical significance indicate that these effects are largely independent of each other. The strength of political efficacy confirms findings of previous studies showing that it represents a consistent and highly significant behavioral explanation of political participation. The analysis also indicates strong, positive impacts of participation in civil society on political participation. Finally, civil society participation is related to the urban-rural locations of respondents in Thailand. This latter finding is consistent with earlier evidence that the urban-rural cleavages, while related to SES, are stronger in their ability to explain Thai political behavior (Albritton and Bureekul, 2002). The sum of the studies suggests that, in Thailand, there are effects of urbanization that influence political behavior independently of socioeconomic status. The data in this study also offer suggestions as to what those independent effects might be and their origins. This latter topic will be treated below in the analysis. ________________________________________________________________________ 15 TABLE 5: Political Participation as a Function of Participation in Civil Society, Rural-Urban Location, and Political Efficacy (2002) N=1467 ________________________________________________________________________ Regression Coefficient Beta t-test Sig. of t Civil Society Participation .307 .162 6.14 .000 Political Efficacy .096 .169 6.74 .000 Rural-Urban Location -.167 -.143 -5.41 .000 R-square = .099 ________________________________________________________________________ This study also examines the impacts of participation in civil society associations on attitudes toward institutions of government and society. If civil society is seen as a source of confrontational politics or “radical democracy,” participation in these associations should produce negative feelings toward government institutions, especially the extent to which respondents trust these institutions. Table 6 presents these associations in a correlation analysis that indicates associations between participation in civil society and levels of trust in major institutions of government and society. ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE 6: Associations Between Civil Society Association and Trust in Political and Social Institutions ________________________________________________________________________ r F-test Sig. of F The Courts .04 1.938 .164 The National Government .05 3.162 .076 Political Parties .11 17.716 .000 Parliament .01 .097 .756 Civil Service .05 3.623 .057 The Military .07 7.739 .005 The Police .01 .194 .660 Local Government .13 24.470 .000 The Election Commission .07 5.793 .016 NGOs .07 4.625 .032 Local MPs .13 21.795 .000 The Constitutional Court .06 3.855 .050 The Counter-Corruption Com. .01 .174 .677 Newspapers -.06 5.107 .024 Television .02 .485 .486 Trust people in government .07 7.825 .005 16 Overall level of trust .10 8.289 .004 ________________________________________________________________________ Table 6 provides significant support for a conclusion that participation in civil society in Thailand contributes to the inculcation of trust in specific political and social institutions. Not only is the indicator of participation in civil society organizations associated with the overall level of trust and trust in officials in social and political institutions, such participation is associated with positive levels of trust, especially in political parties, the military, local government, and local MPs. To a somewhat lesser degree, participation in civil society is associated with trust in the national government, the election commission, NGOs, the Civil Service, and the Constitutional Commission. One irony is that participation in civil society is negatively associated with trust in newspapers. Far from being a stimulus of confrontational politics, most common forms of civil society in Thailand appear to be reinforcing allegiances to the most important political and social institutions of the nation. In this respect, civil society appears to be counteracting a hyperindividualism that characterizes the Thai public. Sources of Participation in Civil Society What are the origins of civil society in an emerging democracy - especially one not associated with confrontational politics of post-revolutionary movements? The answers in the Thai case are complex, but the data offer some clues as to factors encouraging civil society participation. As it turns out, many of the sources are so highly related to other sources that a straight-forward model is beyond reach. Participation in civil society is associated, in a bivariate relationship, with age and SES. Older people are more likely to be involved in civil society than younger people and 17 people of lower SES are more likely to be involved in civil society than upper status people. Both findings are somewhat counter to a conventional discourse that envisions civil society groups as largely middle-class based and confrontational in nature. The finding that civil society associations are associated more with older society, however, accords with Putnam’s basic argument that the virtues of civil society associations are declining increasingly among the young. The finding that upper-status people are lower in civil society associations is most likely a result of their urban locations (see Table 4). In fact, SES and rural-urban location are so highly correlated (r=.525) that the two variables do not survive in the same equation predicting participation in civil society. (Rural-Urban is the stronger of the two.) The configuration of civil society in the Thai case, then, is composed of older, lower status people, primarily from rural areas. One more factor appears to have an impact on the relationship between culture and participation in civil society in Thailand --- degree of traditionalism versus modernism (Phongpaichit and Baker, 1998: 159-186). For purposes of this study, a measure of traditionalism is constructed from questions asked on a survey in 2002. A series of questions representing traditional “Asian Values” are presented in Appendix I. Here, the sum of these questions as an indicator of “traditionalism” is examined for its association with civil society participation controlling for geographic location (ruralurban) and age. The results confirm the strongly negative effects of urban culture on support for civil society, as well as the surprising fact that traditional values ________________________________________________________________________ TABLE 7: Sources of Support for Participation in Civil Society (2002) N= 1495 ________________________________________________________________________ Variables Urban Location Regression Coefficients -.202 Betas -.325 t-test -13.25 Sig. of t .000 18 Age Traditionalism .004 .012 .079 .078 3.23 3.14 .001 .002 R-square = .113 F = 64.21 ________________________________________________________________________ lead to higher levels of participation in associations representing social capital or civil society. Although the actual dynamics represented here require deeper “parsing” of the relationship, it is not inconsistent with the notion that “modernism” is so highly associated with “individualism” that the latter mitigates against formation of strong civil society associations. Formation of Traditional “Asian Values” in the Thai Context Indicators of “traditional values” in the survey break down in a factor analysis into three dimensions: family values; methods of conflict resolution; and conflict avoidance (See Appendix 1).When these dimensions are examined for causal connections among the same variables, it turns out that “family values” are most negatively affected by an urban environment. By contrast, SES supports higher levels of traditional family values, as does female gender. Age and religiosity have little to do with support for traditional family values (Table 8). Table 8 shows that this dimension of “traditionalism” is virtually a function of socio-economic status and urban location. The higher respondents’ socioeconomic status, the more likely they are to hold the traditional “Asian” orientations embodied in the questions used in this survey, but exposure to urban culture operates in a negative direction. There is virtually no relationship between traditional values and the other indicators, however, not even to frequency of religious devotion. ________________________________________________________________________ Table 8: Sources of Support for Traditional Family Values (2002) 19 Coefficients Unstandar Standardi dized zed Coefficien Coefficien ts ts Model B Std. Error Beta 1(Constant) .657 .159 actual age -6.243E-04 .002 -.009 gender -.196 .054 -.099 relgiosity -2.173E-02 .015 -.039 URBAN -.476 .069 -.208 SES .157 .032 .157 t Sig. 4.123 -.311 -3.632 -1.408 -6.901 4.959 .000 .756 .000 .159 .000 .000 Dependent Variable: Traditional Family Values (Appendix 1) R-square = .053; Sig. <.000 When one turns to traditional methods for resolving conflicts, a different picture emerges. Urban respondents as well as persons of higher socioeconomic status both are lower in support of these traditional values than their rural, lower-status counterparts (Table 9). Age and religious devotion do not seem to be significant factors in the equation, but gender is also a significant factor – men are more likely to support traditional approaches to conflict resolution than women. _______________________________________________________________________ Table 9: Sources of Support for Traditional Values of Conflict Resolution (2002) Coefficients Unstandar Standardi t Sig. dized zed Coefficien Coefficien ts ts Model B Std. Error Beta 1(Constant) .203 .151 1.340 .180 actual age -6.332E-03 .002 -.090 -3.323 .001 gender .162 .051 .081 3.156 .002 relgiosity 4.736E-04 .015 .001 .032 .974 URBAN 8.980E-02 .065 .039 1.371 .170 SES .328 .030 .326 10.889 .000 Dependent Variable: Traditional Values of Conflict Resolution (Appendix 1) R-square = .151; Sig. <.000 ________________________________________________________________________ The equation explaining aversion to conflict tells a similar story. Urban and higher 20 socioeconomic status respondents are more likely to be conflict-averse than rural, lowerstatus respondents, but effects are marginal, >.01; men also are more supportive of traditional methods of conflict resolution than women. It is important for understanding the implications of this analysis that the associations noted in Tables 8 and 9 represent associations between the causal variables and attitudinal orientations controlling for the other variables. For example, urban and upper-status respondents are significantly less likely to be religiously devout, while women are significantly more devout than men. Older respondents are significantly more rural, lower-status, and significantly more devout, as one would expect. In equations, such as those presented above (Tables 7, 8, 9), therefore, the proper interpretation should be that the observed associations exist after controls for the other factors in the equation. Even though age is significantly associated with traditional approaches to conflict resolution, for example, the relationship of this variable to urban-rural location and socioeconomic status reduces its role in an explanatory model. Some of the association that we observe related to age is, in fact, spurious in association with rural-urban and socioeconomic status factors that are clearly dominant in the analysis. Traditionalism also varies significantly by region of the country. Table 10 shows this variation in an index of “modernism” constructed from the questions: “How does the respondent characterize himself or herself? 1-10, Villager (Chao Ban) or City Person (Khon Muang);” “How ‘modern’ (Thansammay) does a person characterize oneself?;” “What kind of music does a person like to listen to? Country Music (Luk Thung) to Pop/Rock.” These items factor neatly onto a single, natural factor and are consistent 21 across three polls.5 The measure created by these three indicators is considered as a measure of how “modern” respondents consider themselves to be. Variation on this indicator by region is shown in Table 10. The “modernism” score for all regions increased between 2005 and 2007 --- except for the Northeast (Isan), which declined. Unsurprisingly, the “modernism” score for Bangkok increased the most, although the North is only marginally behind in the amount of increase. Equally unsurprising is the fact that this index of “modernism” is almost totally a function of SES and the variables that represent SES --- income, education, and occupational status. The implication is that the higher one rises on the SES ladder, the more likely that person is to view themselves as a “modern” person. Thus, the cleavage between “urban” and “rural” society also represents a cleavage between the “modern” and “traditional’ dimensions of Thai culture. _______________________________________________________________________ Table 10: Orientations to Modernism by Region (2005 and 2007) _______________________________________________________________________ Region 2005 Score 2007 Score North 13.003 15.682 Northeast 11.833 11.329 Central 13.415 13.673 South 13.870 14.228 Bangkok 16.335 18.649 _____________________________________________________________________ Total 13.125 13.755 Sig. of F-value = .000 .000 Impacts of “Sakdina” on Political Behavior Harold Lasswell, in his famous study, Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How, suggests that a definition of “elites” is that they “get the most of what there is to get; the ‘mass’ is everyone else.” And what is there to “get?” The answer is “Income,” 5 How religious a person might be does not factor with the other indicators and is omitted from this measure of “modernism.” 22 “Deference,” and “Safety.” When scholars discriminate between elites and masses they almost inevitably focus on the concepts of income and wealth, to the exclusion of deference as a major source of social and political cleavages.6 Thailand is characterized by a tradition of inequality, as much related to deference as to income, wealth, or safety. Perhaps the most profound impact on social organization in Thailand comes from the tradition of “Sakdina,” a system of social hierarchy, once official, but still in place as a guide in contemporary Thai society. The most significant aspect of this system is the institutionalization of inequality as a fundamental pillar of Thai politics, but the most important contribution of the concept of sakdina to Thai politics is the notion of patronage --- that is, in the hierarchical ranking of all citizens; every citizen has a “patron” and is also a “patron” to someone else (Tamthai, 1999). The intricacies of what is called the “sakdhina” system are too complex to be addressed here. Its crude translation originally referred to a place of honor derived from control of land, essentially land bestowed by the king and was a way of ranking ordinary people in terms of their value to society. More recently, it has come to mean honor as a function of “place” or status. Thai society is organized around the hierarchical system of “place” in which everyone knows to pay proper respect to “superiors” as a function of age, education, occupation, and other cues, such as respect for monastics, and persons associated, however remotely, with the historic monarchy, who constitute a significant portion of leadership in government, the media, and universities, particularly in Bangkok. The key concept for Thais, as formulated by M.R. Kukrit Pramoj, who was largely responsible for reinterpreting and consolidating the sakdhina system during the 1950s, The concept of “Safety” can include health, the distributions of disease and physical maladies, as well as safety from crime and violence from authorities, as well as from other citizens. 6 23 after its undermining in the overthrow of the absolute monarchy, is “Know thy place,” meaning that citizens should accept the status to which they are born and to be content with it. The ideology of “place” was elevated as a characteristic of national identity by Pramoj, an intellectual leader in the revival of the monarchy under the authoritarian national leader Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat. Contrary to the liberal ideology of the 1932 overthrow of the monarchy, that the nation and its sovereignty belong to the people, the concept of “sakdhina” promotes an ideology based upon the notion that all beneficence flows from the monarchy, all liberties – and even democracy – are granted to the people by the king, and the social structure rightly divides people into hierarchical rankings according to their birthright (Sattayanurak, 2007).7 This understanding of fundamental Thai identity as “sakdhina” has been established by government-supported intellectuals and propagated through the media and the governmentally controlled school system. Virtually all Thais are socialized into this view of identity in which their status or “place” is given to them by birth. Reinforcement of this ideology comes by means of several rituals, including the traditional form of greeting, the “wai,” in which the “inferior” initiates the traditional greeting to which the “superior” may or may not respond. Mark Tamthai (1999) notes that persons of higher rank are regarded as “more worthy,” and their testimony is given greater weight in court cases. Although members of Thai society can increase or decrease their place in the social hierarchy, the system is both a legally codified and traditional institutionalization of inequality. Some commentators suggest that this system handicaps the promotion of The description of “sakdhina” in this paper comes from the doctoral dissertation of Saichol Sattayanurak, which is in press. The chapter, “The Construction of Mainstream Thought on ‘Thainess’ and the ‘Truth’ Constructed by ‘Thainess’” was translated by Sarinee Achavanuntakul. 7 24 human rights and democracy in that it operates against the notion that all members of society are equally deserving of respect and dignity and that all members of society have equal ability in making political choices (Tamthai, 2001). This traditional understanding of “Thainess” has morphed into beliefs held by royalists, as well as non-royalist academics and the media, favoring elite dominance (elite “guidance”) of Thai society and politics. Clearly it supports a cultural premise of inequality. More recently other commentators have chosen to elaborate on the theme of social inequality as a basis of Thai society. VoranaiVarijaka, writing in the Bangkok Post (16/7/2010; 25/7/2010) depicts Thai society as characterized by inequality, not so much in terms of income, but primarily in terms of deference. His descriptions of comparative social roles of master-servant and the obsequiousness or servility required of the latter give substance to the notions inherent in a hierarchical society that adherents of the traditional cultural values are committed to preserve.8 Sattayanurak suggests that the internalization of inequality prevails because the Thai media and education system have not been reformed to express an ideology characterized by equality, in which there would be a social space for all groups of people to attain justice and freedom to live a dignified life.(p.1) What is important for political analysis, however, is the realization that the course of democracy in Thailand cannot properly be understood apart from how this “historic elitist system” qualifies almost every aspect of democratic discourse.9 Inequality is sometimes justified as “karma” related to a previous life. While one may accept the accidents of birth as a function of karma obtained in a previous life, nothing in purer forms of Buddhism than Theravada justify discrimination based upon status of birth. 9 When one of the authors asked two educated Thai adults whether Thais believed that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal,” the response was, essentially, “absolutely not.” 88 25 The overall ideology of sakdhina, that was revised and promulgated by Kukrit, has several implications that profoundly structure Thai attitudes towards politics and government:10 1. The king controls the government’s use of power. This premise creates a dichotomy between “government” and “administration.” The former may be democratically elected; however, elected governments come and go, but the bureaucracy is one constant in the Thai polity. A corollary is that because the king is the moral compass of the nation, there is no need for democratic political structures, such as parliaments or checks and balances mechanisms to supervise the government’s use of power, as long as there is a king. In this view, democratic institutions are of secondary consequence, as the king will insure that the government does not abuse its authority. In fact, it is appropriate for the king to obstruct any activity seen as governmental abuse of power (Sattayanurak, 22). 2. Sattayanurak argues that part of the propaganda restoring the sanctity of the royal institution was a belief in the correctness of an unequal social structure, in which “people have no political right or freedom to participate in any decision-making process about the use of resources and checks-and-balance mechanisms…..there is no need for democratic institutions (such as the parliament or independent organizations) to supervise the government’s use of power, because Thailand has the king to supervise the government, to ensure that it will not abuse or misuse its authority.” (21) A good democracy is an elite guided society, defined as a society “without politics.” Only when a ruler can be free from politics, defined as struggles over power and interests, can there be a “good” society. Ills that afflict the Thai nation are due to 10 We leave it to the reader to apply each of these principles to the 2006 coup. To us they are transparent. 26 “politics;” therefore, “non-political” institutions, such as the bureaucracy, the military, and, most explicitly, the monarchy, are, in principle, above politics. Part of the socialization process is perpetuation of a belief that “Thais do not want political freedom to demand rights relating to natural resources, and they also feel that such freedom will cause chaos. Therefore, what they demand is a decisive and strong (ruler), not a strong civil society.” (Sattayanurak, 25) 3. Order is preferable to freedom. Whenever someone disrupts order (defined as disrupting the “know thy place” principle), the ruler is entitled to use violent means to suppress that disruption. This principle, perhaps more than the others, helps to interpret the process of coups and counter-coups that, until 2006, seemed to be a thing of the past. These ideological principles have corrupted traditional understandings of political democracy in Thailand. The concept of sakdhina clearly elevates the position of a hierarchical elite at the expense of traditional instruments of democracy, such as prime ministers and parliaments. In this understanding, the importance is not in having democratic institutions, but in having “good people” to administer the government. Because, under this interpretation, the masses do not have the competence to criticize government policies, critics of the government must focus on moral deficiencies. This means that a strong leader, even a dictatorship, is not “bad” government, as long as the leader is “moral” and can be seen as working for the best interests of the people. One consequence of this view is that the king must be seen as “good” and free from criticism over public affairs; another is that most political parties conduct campaigns that are not presentations of policy alternatives, but highly personalized in terms of the “worthiness” 27 of party leaders. As we shall note later, these perspectives are important for the forming of one dimension of the current political culture. Guardians of this system work assiduously to ensure that government in Thailand is weak. One problem with the 1997 constitution for the elites was that it encouraged strong party government. Truly strong government threatens the autonomy of the bulwarks of the elites – the monarchy, the military, and the bureaucracy. Thaksin Shinawatra began to assert authority over military promotions and interfered with this bastion guarding a system dominated by historic elites, whereas previously these matters were left to military insiders. Finally, he began to assert political authority over the bureaucracy, particularly the Ministry of Interior, and the bureaucratic polity, the most stable instrument of Thai governance, would not go quietly. Above all, Thaksin’s threat to the old system was that he promulgated an assumption that sovereignty derived from the people, apparently forgetting the hallmark of Thai governance that “the king controls the government’s use of power.” (Sattayanurak, 20) Contrary to many nations in which the middle class is the engine of democracy, the middle class of Thailand represents two fundamentally divergent interests: 1) an emerging class of entrepreneurs who have difficulty responding to rapid social and economic change in Thai society consistent with a hierarchical social order, and 2) an aristocracy associated with the traditional social hierarchy from which they benefit. The latter find themselves at odds with rural masses, unless they are compliant enough to become politically quiescent, allowing the right of place to guide them through politics. As one representative of sakdhina-guided intellectuals put it, “The problem with Thaksin 28 is that he mobilized the poor and got them involved in politics; and the problem with that is that the poor vote differently from the middle class.”11 The struggle between aristocrats and democrats also takes shape as conflicts between Bangkok and the hinterland. Political dimensions of this cleavage represent a resurrection of the “two democracies” thesis that essentially pits the politics of Bangkok against politics of the rural populations. Polls, taken in 2005 and 2006, indicated growing divisions between urban and rural populations on some of the most fundamental social and political dimensions, and post-coup reports on the financial situations faced by farmers in the Northeast underline growing tensions between rural areas and the Bangkok metropole, since the current regime returned government to traditional dominance by Bangkok interests less concerned for adversities in the hinterland. Summary What does the preceding data analysis indicate about the outlines of Thai culture? The data clearly reinforce the view that the effects of culture – in this case “Asian values” – are diverse even within a single nation. Furthermore, variations in cultural orientations within Thai society appear to arise primarily from orientations to life from rural and urban environments and, in some cases, from differing positions in society related to socioeconomic status or class. These variations by sector are so significant that it is difficult to refer to any aggregate of attitudes and opinions as distinctively “Thai.” In fact, we expect that differing distributions of populations on these dimensions underlie what we observe as regional differences. In other words, variance within nations on these dimensions supercedes variance among nations. There are no distinctly “Asian values” other than those that derive from among diverse cultural perspectives. A more detailed 11 Thirayuth Boonmi, quoted in the Bangkok Post, 3/12/2006. 29 explication of these variations cries out for further analysis. Thai Political Culture If Thai culture begs definition, Thai “political” culture is even more difficult to grasp because of its variations across geographic areas and other cleavages noted above within Thailand. Thus, Thai political culture is even less idiosyncratic to the nation. Like any political culture it requires examination within a framework of generalizable concepts that help to explain why politics operate the way they do within specific countries. This means that, in general, understanding Thai political culture requires at least an internally comparative context. Nor is political culture, in general, represented by attitudes and opinions toward “liberalism” or “conservatism,” or even toward specific public policies. These are essentially attitudes and ideologies toward specific configurations of political or economic practice. Political “culture” is represented by more fundamental attitudes and orientations concerning the relationships of a citizen to government, that is, how citizens understand themselves in terms of what government should be for them. This study is about Thai political culture – what it is and how it is distributed across the Thai nation. For this, we shall utilize the surveys conducted by the King Prajadhipok’s Institute from 2000-2007, including surveys for the Asian Barometer, the World Values Survey, a survey for the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project, and three national surveys associated with parliamentary elections in Thailand in 2001, 2005, and 2007. As described by most researchers, political culture represents more than attitudes and opinions; rather, it represents fundamental beliefs concerning (1) the appropriate role or scope of government; (2) the relationship of citizens to the polity; and (3) who should 30 govern. Larry Diamond notes, however, that it is important to understand that not all social groups within a nation share the same political culture or “that values and beliefs are evenly distributed throughout the population,” that “different….regional groups within a single country often have different value systems and world views”(1994: 8). Diamond goes on to argue that it is misleading to talk about the political culture of a nation and that the concept is best represented by disaggregating into “subcultures” (8). This study finds that not only does political culture vary across regions of Thailand, but that the subject is treated more appropriately if we go even further to assume that individuals are also complex mixtures of alternative political subcultures or understandings of the appropriate relationships of citizens to government. The first task is to create a typology of such relationships, then to measure the different orientations as they exist within each individual. If the researcher seeks more aggregate measures, such as national regions or even nations, they may be expressed as aggregate combinations of the measures as they are defined empirically. Such combinations are described in an application of Daniel Elazar’s formulation of American political cultures and sub-cultures as they operate in the United States (Dran, et al., 1991). According to Elazar (1972) the political culture of the U.S. devolves into three distinct subcultures that he designates as “Individualistic,” “Moralistic,” and “Traditionalistic.” The “Individualistic” political subculture (IPC), according to Elazar, conceives of the political context for citizens as a “marketplace.” Here, a citizen conceives of the relationship of citizens to government as one in which the purpose of government is to assist citizens in attaining their goals in life (or, as economists often put it, “maximizing 31 their utility”). Government exists for purely utilitarian reasons; politics is just another means by which individuals may improve themselves socially and economically. Because the IPC emphasizes private concerns, there is a studied effort to limit public sector intervention. Rather, it is based upon mutual obligations expressed in personal relationships (reciprocity). In its best sense, the duty of holding office requires that officials “give the public what it wants” and the motivation for the pursuit of political competition is the control of mechanisms of distribution of favors or rewards of government rather than pursuit of ideological or programmatic ends. In this context, politics is a business like any other business; thus it is expected that politicians obtain private economic gain, not unlike other professionals. In this view, there is little place for ideologies, political parties are the “corporations” for doing business in the political arena, and politics is for professionals --- there is no place for amateurs. There is an underlying belief that “politics is a dirty business,” but necessary for popular government. Needless to say, this perspective is tolerant of minor corruption and the underlying ethos is that such variations are necessary “in order to get things done.” In “giving the public what it wants,” the government should eschew initiatives for which there is little or no popular demand. The Individualistic subculture is also ambivalent about bureaucracy, even to the point of opposing it when it interferes with dispensation of “favors” or patronage by politicians. The “Moralistic” political subculture (MPC) does not refer to morality, per se, and certainly not to “moralism.” Here, the concept of political society is of participation by citizens in a “commonwealth” based upon notions of “public goods,’ rather than individual or private interests. Contrary to the individualistic subculture, government 32 should intervene in private activities if it is in the public interest, although the definition of the latter often varies. This understanding of the political community requires involvement of all citizens, not just professionals, and it is the duty of citizens to participate, thus “amateur” participation in politics is desirable, coinciding with rejection of any notion that politics should be used for private, economic gain. In the Moralistic subculture, political parties are only “useful,” but not essential, and, in fact, non-partisan government is preferable to a competitive party system. Because serving the community is a moral obligation of office-holders, the “public interest” should take precedence over individual loyalties and political friendships. The major focus of the MPC is to reflect the interests of civil society which channels the interest in government intervention into highly localistic paths. Bureaucratic intervention should occur only when it is politically neutral and guided by local governmental norms. The “Traditionalistic” subculture (TPC) is based upon a belief in a hierarchical ordering of society in which historic elites have both a right and a duty to govern (noblesse oblige). In this view, “good governance” means maintaining the traditional patterns of society, in which social status and family ties are of paramount importance. The Traditionalistic culture is ambivalent toward the marketplace view of government, except when the norms of IPC threaten what its adherents believe to be the appropriate social order. Not unlike the IPC, Traditionalistic political culture prizes a politics based upon informal interpersonal relationships. Political parties are seen as a threat to the elitedominated system because they mobilize the masses. There is little room for citizen participation and this perspective is anti-bureaucratic because the bureaucracy is somewhat independent of sources of elite control. 33 TPC draws its support from the concept of “legitimacy” based in historical and institutional traditions formed over the years. This orientation argues for a natural aristocracy (or oligarchy) based upon social, rather than economic, caste, and provides support for notions that if there must be democracy, it should be an elite guided democracy. In fact, drafters of the 1997 Constitution made a noble effort to represent all three political cultures in the structures of the government of Thailand. Providing for singlemember election districts moved the parliamentary system toward more representative government, thus expressing moralistic values. The system of Senate elections made room for “interests” that produced representation of salient minorities – Buddhist senators in overwhelmingly Muslim districts, representation of women’s and children’s interest groups. Provisions for party-list representation strengthened political parties in line with IPC. Addition of “watch-dog” agencies, such as the National CounterCorruption Commission, maintained oversight of the governing process consistent with maintenance of elite control (TPC). Perceptions that the 1997 Constitution did not provide “sufficient” controls of the governing process were factors in provoking the elite coup of 2006. Dran, et al., (1991) found that not only are these three subcultures clearly distinguishable through survey research, but scores of individuals on these dimensions of political culture outperform the usual demographic indicators in explaining politicalpolicy attitudes and opinions. Although Elazar posited that the core subculture of the United States is the Individualistic subculture, individual states are often characterized by one of the alternative three subcultures and this conceptualization has been applied 34 countless times to analysis of public policy in the American states.12 Dran, et al., suggest, however, that not only are aggregates, such as states or nations, combinations of all three subcultures, but individuals are also unique combinations of all three subcultures. By surveying populations as to their beliefs concerning the relationships of citizens to their governments, each individual can be profiled best by scores on each of the three political subculture types. But how well does such a formulation work in an Asian context, presumably of a very different set of cultural configurations, particularly those of political culture? Remarkably, the three subcultures have been identified in Thai populations as early as 1992 (Albritton, et al., 1996; Albritton and Prabudhanitisarn, 1997) and in surveys conducted by KPI at the time of parliamentary elections in 2001, 2005, and 2007. The findings differ in one key aspect. The earlier surveys found that the core political subculture was not Individualistic, as in the United States, but rather Traditionalistic, as one might expect, consistent with an underlying ethos of sakdina. The finding of Traditionalistic subculture as the core culture comes from surveys of the four predominantly Muslim provinces plus four northern provinces13 in 1992, and in national surveys in 2001 and 2005. Interestingly, the 2007 poll found that the core culture had shifted to Individualistic by the time of the poll. Appendix 2 presents the empirical evidence from the national polls. We take the first (or strongest) factor to represent the strongest force of political culture at the time of the poll. As early as 1996, Pasuk and Baker argued that political cultures are products of interactions between individuals and a rapidly changing society about the most 12 The argument presented here is that such designations are inappropriate because they elide other dimensions of the concept existing within alternative state configurations of all three subcultures. 13 Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Payao, and Phrae) 35 appropriate roles of government. The three factor analyses over fifteen years clearly document a course of change from a society rooted in political “traditionalism” to one in which the construct of political “individualism” has become a core factor of political culture in Thailand. What does such evidence imply? Prior to the 2005 poll, dimensions of Traditionalistic and Individualistic subcultures were not clearly distinguishable. By 2005, however, responses to surveys clearly distinguished all three dimensions of political subcultures. The primacy of the first factor (Traditionalistic) indicated that the primary dimension of political culture embodied a high level of “deference” – to government officials, to political leaders, most especially, to persons of higher social status in the overall hierarchy. In many respects, at least, this subcultural type embodies the values of the sakdina system. The core culture type, however, changed by 2007. Instead of a Traditionalistic subculture, the primary factor proved to be that of an Individualistic political subculture. This subculture type accepts the notion that “politics should be left to professionals” and that participation by amateurs is not a desirable characteristic of the political system. One aspect of this subculture is that “politics is a business just like any other business,” so that it is perfectly acceptable for “professionals” to benefit privately from political activity, a concession leading to acceptance of the views that “sometimes corruption must be tolerated in order to get things done,” and that patronage is an expected and even a desirable outcome, especially if it can benefit one’s family. This is an ethos that represents many American cities --- Chicago, for example. Thailand appears to be moving away from a “Traditionalistic” orientation of politics into a more 36 “entrepreneurial” or “commercial” political subculture that characterizes the modernizing and globalizing world. As in all the surveys, Moralistic political subculture is weakest in the Thai context. (It is important to note that the label has little to do with “morality” and more with participation of the public in political affairs, especially in the duty to vote, contrary to the Individualistic view that politics is for professionals). What is most important is not that this subculture lags behind the others, but rather the distribution of this subculture, with its attendant values, within Thailand. ________________________________________________________________________ Table 11: Scores on “Individualistic,” “Traditionalistic,” and “Moralistic” Subcultures by Region (An ANOVA Analysis), 2005 (N=1924) and 2007 (N=1784) ________________________________________________________________________ Region Individualistic Traditionalistic Moralistic Bangkok (2005) .2128 -.3307 ,1432 Central (2005) .1079 .0790 -.2087 North (2005) .0482 .0328 .1281 Northeast (2005) -.1069 .1952 -.0284 South (2005) -.1312 -.4784 .1629 Sig.< .000 .000 .000 _________________________ Bangkok (2007) .0927 -.0849 .1026 Central (2007) .2709 .0778 -.0155 North (2007) .2114 -.0452 -.1147 Northeast (2007) -.3298 .0633 .1332 South (2007) .1965 -.1301 -.0545 Sig.< .000 .031 .001 _____________________________________________________________________ Table 11 records the relative distributions of scores on each of the subculture dimensions by geographic regions. Although the core culture appears to shift to “Individualistic” by 2007, it is important to remember that in 1992 and 2001, as well as 2005, “Traditionalistic” culture was identified as the core culture of Thailand. A finding that the core culture was “Traditionalistic” is neither surprising nor remarkable, but the 37 movement of the core culture toward “Individualistic” portends a major shift occurring in the years following implementation of the 1997 Constitution. The major regional shifts that appear to account for this change appear to have occurred in the Central, North, and South regions. Bangkok, which led the regions in IPC in 2005, declined somewhat relative to other regions, while the Central region surged ahead on this indicator. The Northeast region remained the only negative region on this measure of political culture, while the South changed dramatically in both Individualistic and Moralistic political cultures. Perhaps most intriguing is the shift toward the Moralistic political culture in the Northeastern Region. Elazar suggests that the values of commercial society (individualism) are consistently reshaped in accordance with principles of “agrarian legitimacy” (1972:102) that places limits on the dominance of commerce in favor of a more just “commonwealth” in which wealth and profits are not the pre-eminent goal of political life. Such a view seems consistent with the political struggles that have taken place between the agrarian and commercial sectors of the Thai economy. Political Implications of Political Culture Our previous work has also indicated significant implications of this formulation of political culture for how Thais evaluate candidates in elections. By asking respondents to indicate how important certain characteristics are to their voting choice, there emerges a pattern that differentiates among a factor we call “Ability/Capability,” another defined as an orientation to “Localism,” and one in which the voter choice relies heavily on personal characteristics of candidates (Appendix 3). Taking each of these voter orientations as 38 dependent variables, we attempt to explain such orientations in terms of political cultures, as well as orientations to “modernism” and SES. Table 12 compares the relative contributions of these variables toward explaining respondents’ affinity for characteristics of candidates that show “ability or capability.” In this equation, Moralistic Political Culture has the strongest level of association with these values. Individualistic Political Culture is next in strength, but in a negative direction. Finally, neither Traditionalistic Political Culture, nor Modernism, nor SES proved to have significant impacts on the importance respondents gave to values of Capability or Ability. Given the respective interpretations of IPC and MPC, both of which prove highly significant, the results tend to confirm the notions that political cultures have important explanatory power for choice of candidates within the electoral arena, in expected directions, and that the configurations of political cultures outweigh significantly demographic and attitudinal factors associated with voter choice. _______________________________________________________________________ Table 12: Regressions of Candidate Perceptions as Functions of Political Culture, 2007 (N=1108) _______________________________________________________________________ Dependent Variable Reg. Coeff Beta Sig. of t Capability of Candidate MPC .171 .172 .000 IPC -.131 -.131 .000 TPC -.041 -.042 .169 Modernism .009 .055 .121 SES .015 .015 .672 R-square = .051 Sig. < .000 Localism MPC -.149 -.156 .000 IPC .202 .210 .000 TPC .106 .111 .000 Modernism .018 .111 .001 SES -.022 -.024 .493 R-square = .095 Sig. < .000 Personal Traits 39 MPC IPC TPC Modernism SES -.006 -.006 .829 -.094 -.098 .001 .110 .116 .000 .0003 .002 .958 -.027 -.029 .410 R-square = .025 Sig. < .000 ________________________________________________________________________ Moralistic Political Culture, or a “commonwealth” conception of politics is the most important variable explaining support for “capability/ability” in choosing candidates, but negatively related to values of “localism.” Individualistic Political Culture is the reverse, being positively related to values of “localism” and negatively related to values of “capability/ability.” Traditionalistic Political Culture is negatively related to “capability/ability” but it is the only variable related positively to what we might consider superficial personal traits. In none of the equations does either “modernism” or SES reach a level of significance. The evidence is clear that political culture proves to be significantly more important than some of the other crucial factors for explaining sets of values applied by voters in choosing candidates, that is, why Thais vote the way they do. Summary This study offers a novel way for understanding the tensions of political culture in Thailand. Contrary to most analyses, it assumes that the characteristics of Thai political culture are not unique, but follow relatively general patterns applicable to other countries throughout the world. This typology is supported by data analysis. Identification of Thai political culture as composing a mix of “Individualistic,” “Moralistic,” and “Traditionalistic” norms illuminates some of the cleavages that are wracking the country through an immense political change. It is significant that throughout the past decade, periodic measurement of Thai political culture indicates movement from a core culture 40 largely “Traditionalistic” to one that is more “Individualistic,” therefore more consistent with modernizing and globalizing values of commercialism. One outcome of the analysis is evidence that ascriptions of “political culture” should be multidimensional, even for individuals. Although “political culture” cannot be expressed categorically, that is as a single concept, multiple dimensions, measured at the level of individuals, can be aggregated to groups, societies, regions, and even nations, as is done here. The data indicate that at least the three dimensions suggested by Elazar are found in Thailand. The analysis employed here makes it possible to characterize not only the nation and geographic regions in terms of these subcultures, but also to track the changes in these dimensions. It is especially significant that the core values of traditionalism appear to be transforming into a political culture more compatible with modernism and entrepreneurialism linked to social forces of globalization. This change must be painful for social elites who have relied for decades, if not for centuries, on the stability of “place” emphasized in a “sakdina” value system, represented by “Traditionalistic” norms of political culture. What we are observing is the impact of new ways of thinking about society and culture, much as Pasuk and Baker described the impacts of globalization and modernization on the reformulation even of Buddhism. But there is no way back. Penetration of mass media to the remotest areas of Thailand have opened new ways of thinking about the aspirations of the most ordinary citizens and raised new expectations of what governments are all about. No more can elites argue that “the problem for Thais is that they aspire too much. They should go back to plant their rice fields and be happy.” 14 14 This quote comes from a keynote address at a conference on social welfare in Pattani. The speaker was Prawas Wasi. 41 There are many aspects of an “Individualistic” political culture that are problematic for Thais or for any society that aspires to good governance. One such aspect is a tolerance for corruption associated with entrepreneurialism. This tension is common in all parts of the world where industrialism and entrepreneurialism develop. In some cases, however, societies have pushed through to at least some aspects of a “Moralistic” political culture. The problem for Thais is that the principles of this latter form of political culture are premised upon a thorough-going equality that is at sharp variance from caste or sakdina-based systems. The demand for universal participation devolves the origins of political control to the local level, where “Modernistic” political culture values may not yet have penetrated. These tensions are observed most clearly in Table 11. The startling transition of the North from a largely “Moralistic” culture to one that is much more “Individualistic,” represents a very different perspective on politics from that of the past. The surge in “Individualistic” culture in the Central region is remarkable as it represents a social movement away from the core city, Bangkok, into a kind of “suburban” culture which, in almost every country, is more conservative than its origins in urban life. Even more important, perhaps is the stasis of the Northeast, even more negative about an “Individualistic” society, but also increasing in its values consonant with a “Moralistic” political culture. The data thus document some of the most dramatic transitions occurring in Thai society coinciding with political upheavals in the form of a coup (2006) and continuing political conflict that appears to be patterned by regions, but actually follows political culture lines. 42 The evolution of political cultures is inevitably fluid. The picture of what has been taking place over the past decade could change dramatically if new elites are able to exercise the type of social control observed during the Sarit regime. Such a change is difficult to imagine, but change can be anticipated and monitored by consistent measurement of cultural fluxes flowing from dominance of different political cleavages in Thai politics. This is an important contribution not just of political polling, but of systematic, scientific political polling, a practice that occurs too seldom in the plethora of commercial polls that seldom represent the more profound temperature and pressure of Thai politics. 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Vanajaka, Voranai. 2010. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Thai,” Bangkok Post, 2/7/2010. ____________________ . “Amart and Prai,” Bangkok Post, 18/7/2010. ____________________. “ Being Thai,” Bangkok Post, 25/7/2010. 44 Appendix I Factor Analysis of Question Indicating Adherence to Traditional (“Asian”) Values: Varimax Solution Factor 1 Questions Family Values Obedience to parents even if demands are unreasonable .672 Hiring friends and relatives a priority .546 Daughter-in-law should obey mother-in-law .710 Man loses face under female supervisor .682 Accommodate neighbor when there is conflict -.006 Quarrels should be mediated by a elder .197 Person should give-in when there is conflict with co-workers -.125 For family’s sake, person should put own interest second .126 Factor 2 Conflict Resolution Factor 3 Conflict Avoidance .170 -.196 .259 -.298 .036 .080 -.075 .296 .840 .034 .720 .184 .070 .698 .127 .688 Percent of Variance = 54.4 ________________________________________________________________________ 45 Appendix 2 Factor Analysis Representing Elazar’s Typology of Political Subcultures (2005) Questions Traditionalistic Subculture Government leaders are like the head of a family; we should all follow their decisions .629 High social status and family background make a person better suited for political office .709 People who are better off financially make better political leaders .682 People with higher levels of education should have more influence in politics than persons of little or no education .572 Politics and government should be the business of professionals, not just anyone .285 Sometimes corruption in government is necessary in order for government to work .167 When hiring someone, even if a stranger is more qualified the opportunity should be given to friends or relatives .097 People who have bad reputations cannot do well in politics -.175 Politics should be for Individualistic Subculture Moralistic Subculture .219 .068 -.024 .051 .222 .014 .100 .312 .628 -.215 .520 -.136 .659 .036 .587 .548 46 everybody, not just special groups .173 -.251 People who do not vote are not doing their duty .143 -.003 Principal Components Analysis with Varimax Rotation Percent of Variance = 49.7 percent .660 .707 Factor Analysis of Elazar’s Typology of Political Subcultures (2007) Questions Individualistic Subculture Traditionalistic Subculture Politics and government should be the business of professionals, not just anyone .701 .097 Sometimes corruption in government is necessary in order for things to work .766 -.083 When hiring someone, even if a stranger is more qualified, the opportunity should be given to friends or relatives .593 .122 People who are well-off economically know what is best in politics .502 .418 Heads of government are like heads of a family, we should follow their decisions -.052 .740 A strong family background Makes a person better Suited for political office .108 .747 People with higher education should have more influence in politics than less educated persons .105 .615 Politics should be for everyone, not just special groups -.390 .092 People who do not vote are not doing their duty .030 .045 Principal Components Analysis with Varimax Rotation Percent of Variance = 52.87 percent Moralistic Subculture -.170 .064 -.146 .328 -.149 .071 .251 .674 .845 47 Appendix 3 Factor Analysis of Positive Characteristics of Political Candidates (2007) Characteristics Ability/Capability Localism Personal Traits Political experience .532 .023 .533 Does good things for the community .689 .026 .385 Well known for honesty .807 .068 -.051 Can solve problems for the community .741 .159 .029 Has vision and creative thinking .765 .052 .094 Promises to do something for the community -.0003 .621 .093 Always helps friends .089 .720 .076 Good family .109 .585 .189 Gives money or gifts -.253 .538 .032 From the local community .167 .553 -.065 Brings money to the local community .170 .541 .151 Personality .042 .076 .698 High education .195 .067 .747 High economic status -.090 .419 .631 __________________________________________________________________ Principal Components Analysis with Varimax Rotation Percent of Variance = 50.36 percent 48