David A. Wilson, in 1962, assesses Thai Politics for the Rand Corporation

Wilson, David A. 1962. “Political Tradition and Political Change in Thailand.” Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation. 20 pp. A note says, “This paper was prepared for presentation to the Committee on Comparative Study of New Nations at the University of Chicago, November 1961.” See also the reprint Wilson (1976).

During the early post-war period of the observation of Thai politics, the tension between the forces of persistence (tradition) and change (development, modernization) seemed to be as plausible an approach as is “transition (to democracy)” nowadays. In 1960, Wilson submitted a Ph.D. thesis on “Politics in Thailand” that was based on research of altogether four years between 1952 and 1958. This thesis was published as a book in 1962. It was the first systematic treatment in this field, making the author a thought-after expert. The text of the present article was reprinted in Neher’s collection entitled Modern Thai Politics: From Village to Nation (1976). A Thai-language version was published in 1986. Readers might want to keep in mind that Thailand at the time the paper was presented had a mere 20 million inhabitants living mostly as farmers in the countryside. “Of these an overwhelming majority of the adults are not involved in politics” (p. 2). Politics is said to have had little felt impact on the everyday life of the country’s population. Wilson could have left this issue at that. Yet, he adds a “cosmological” explanation to the separate worlds of the rulers and the ruled insofar the latter are said to attribute their own position in this power relationship to their lack of “virtue and moral value” (p. 3). And both depend on their own will and actions. Thus, there existed, according to Wilson, a “just unity of virtue and power. Those who have power are good and deserve power” (ibid.). This was not about “might is right,” but rather about “right is might.” The result of this “is a hierarchy of statuses and powers” (ibid.). It is only the “right behavior [that] leads to advancement in this hierarchy” (p. 4). Change that did happen did “not collapse a traditional set of attitudes towards authority” (ibid.), because such changes were gradual, marginal, and they decreased uncertainties in the people’s lives. From “the point of view of the farmer the existing authority relations have persisted without interruption in the person of government officials” (p. 6). From a different perspective, “The fact that the state’s management has been adequate up to now is an important factor in maintaining the indifference to politics” (p. 7). Yet, there is potential for discontent and even change as could be seen from changes in the peasants’ modernized consumption patterns that could be “interpreted as symptoms of a latent political consciousness” (ibid.).

According to Wilson, “the political class in Thailand is a three-tiered pyramid,” (p. 8) comprising 1-15 people at the top, about 1,000 in the middle, and, perhaps surprisingly, a “political public” of educated citizens living in Bangkok and provincial towns, less so in villages. The ruling class consists mainly of bureaucrats “in the broadest sense of the word” (p. 9). Of them, it is the military that “has taken upon itself the mission of political mentor of the nation” (ibid.). Wilson wrote that sentence when Sarit Thanarat had been in absolute power for about three years already. He also included the sentence, “It is true that the Thai are an exotic people and therefore can be expected to behave oddly” (p. 12). In my copy of the text, a reader added a marginal note saying “RACIST.”

Wilson notes that constitutionalism was used “to remove the throne from power, and may thereby have initiated a series of changes which could result in the bureaucracy being removed from power. That result has not yet come about, however” (p. 13). On the following page, he writes that “up to the present the ruling bureaucrats have not dared abolish the National Assembly. Their path to power by means of coups d’etat is irregular and their legitimacy is open to question. To gain legitimacy the trappings of constitutional government must be maintained and the National Assembly is one of these trappings” (p. 14). Wilson writes this after Sarit Thanarat had performed two coups in 1957 and 1958 and did precisely that: dissolve the National Assembly and abrogate the constitution. Instead, since the time of Sarit, it is the monarchy that “legitimizes” coups, rather than the National Assembly. However, establishing a coup-appointed “National Assembly” and passing an “interim constitution” have become seen as necessary components of coup-derived governments. The National Assembly’s “existence has been so fully institutionalized that it is difficult to see how it could be permanently abolished” (p. 15). It served to give regions a voice at the center and enabled “provincial notables” to attain prestigious political position at the center. However, the composition of its members limits its degree of representativeness.

“Political leaders are not chosen by the public. They thrust themselves on the country” (p. 17). In doing so, “the personal clique is the basic unit. … Larger political organizations are pyramided from these cliques.” This statement still rings very much true in 2025, as does Wilson’s remark that the cliques may not be based solely on personal relations but include the provision of material benefits to the members of the cliques. Members of Parliament can be “disciplined” (p. 18) by patronage activities, “because they find cabinet and parliamentary secretarial posts attractive” (ibid.). Moreover, the government controls pork barrel resources, the “letting of government contracts,” or “export and import permits” (ibid.). Finally, unofficial funds can be used “to pay fees to its parliamentary supporters over and above the normal salary of members” (ibid.; sounds familiar). It was rumored that the 1958 coup occurred because the financial demands of the supporters of the ruling clique became excessive. Nevertheless, demands for a constitution and elections persisted. “These expressions indicate that a return to absolutism even with a fairly high degree of royal support will probably not satisfy the political public” (p. 19). It did not, but it took 11 years, another coup in 1971, and the student uprising in October 1973 to drive this point home. Wilson saw two scenarios for future development. The first was a gradual expansion of the political public based on economic development. “On the other hand, a sudden revolutionary collapse of the traditional block to mass participation … is not impossible” (p. 20). The educated sectors of the population and civilian politicians “perhaps could and would break out of the consensus which sustains the ruling class and move to arouse the peasants” (ibid.).