367th
meeting : “A 'Third Hand': The Role of the Thai
Military in Thai Politics Today”.
Tuesday October 8th
2013
A Talk by Dr. Paul
Chambers (PhD, Northern Illinois University), Chiang Mai University.
...............
Thailand’s military has long been a major political actor standing upon
the political stage. Be it as junior partner to absolute kings,
enjoying absolute power themselves, or currently, as the guarantors for
security to the kingdom of Thailand, the armed forces remain a crucial
opaque entity of enormous clout.
The military leadership has, since
2006 been steadfastly opposed to
former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. In 2011,
the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai party won a landslide election. Then, from
2011 until 2013 an uneasy accommodation settled
across civil-military relations in
Thailand. At present, in 2013, as
tensions rise between Thailand’s
judiciary on one side, and Puea
Thai and pro-Thaksin Red Shirt demonstrators on
the other, the military finds itself at the center of a political
storm. What is the likelihood of military
intervention? What is the extent
today of civilian control over the
military? Will Thailand’s armed forces continue to exert
enormous power or will Thailand see any demilitarization? These and
other related issues will be discussed at this presentation.
The Speaker: Chambers graduated with a Ph.D. in Political Science from
Northern Illinois University, has lived in Thailand off and on since
1993, and has written extensively about security and democracy issues
in Southeast Asia. He was senior
research fellow at Heidelberg University
in Germany (2008-2011); and today is concurrently a
research fellow at the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt, research
associate at the German Institute of Global Area Studies (GIGA) in
Hamburg, and Director of Research and Lecturer at the Institute of
Southeast Asian Affairs, Faculty of Political Science, Chiang Mai
University, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Want to read more? ....click "HERE"
(PDF File for downloading or reading on line - 10 pages).
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