Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s troubles began with the leak of her phone conversation with Cambodia’s Senate President and de facto leader Hun Sen. After less than 11 months in power, the government of Thailand’s youngest prime minister now looks imperiled, with her likely removal ready to set off a prolonged period of political dealmaking to elect a new prime…

My piece on how Thailand’s grand compromise is cracking under pressure is the lead article in the East Asia Forum this week. Thailand’s uneasy post-election alliance between the Pheu Thai Party and the conservative establishment is under growing strain due to continuing legal pressure on former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and factional tensions with the…

I was on the Straight Talk Southeast Asia podcast with Dr. Bridget Welsh to discuss Thai elite dynamics. The episode looks at the decisions of the courts and Election Commission on leading political figures/parties in Thailand and unpacks the issues and impact on political stability and democracy. From the rice subsidy case and Yingluck Shinawarta…

If a book called Why Nations Fail becomes of interest in your country, that should be a pretty good sign that things are not going well. Unfortunately, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Nobel Prize-winning research has been the talk of the town in Thai social media over the past few weeks. Click here to read the full…

In a result that few forecasted, the 2023 general election in Thailand was won by the Move Forward Party, ending twenty years of electoral dominance by political parties affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra and relegating the conservative parties from genuine competition to form a government. However, the coalition that Move Forward attempted to put together fell…

Last week, Thai PBS retracted an article called “Dictatorship Builds Nations: the People Miss Strong Leaders and Growing Economies” (เผด็จการสร้างชาติ” ประชาชน “อาวรณ์” ผู้นำเข้มแข็ง-เศรษฐกิจรุ่ง). The original article, which was published without a byline, has been pulled down from the Thai PBS website. But it was re-published on LINE Today and for now that remains online. So what did…

Last year’s byzantine Senate elections had represented a triumph for the Bhumjaithai party, as with as many as over half the newly elected Senators having apparent affiliations with the Bhumjaithai Party. (Some even speculate this number to be closer to 150-170 out of 200 upper house members). The Standard provided three examples of upper house members with a “dark…

Perhaps President Xi Jinping of China felt a sense of déjà vu when he met with Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra of Thailand. Before Paetongtarn, the last time family member of Thaksin Shinawatra’s that Xi had met was then-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who he last met in 2013. Then, he was meeting a political neophyte who…

On Saturday, Thailand held elections for Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) Chairman positions in 47 out of 77 provinces. Barring a highly unexpected dissolution of parliament, this will be the only major set of elections in Thailand this year. Read the full piece at The Coffee Parliament.

Hi everyone — I’m starting a new Substack newsletter on Thai politics & policy! A tradition of societies everywhere is to gather around in a café and talk about the politics of the day — for keeping up to date, for debate, and for intellectual fulfillment. So beloved is this activity in Thailand that Thais…