Inequality, politicized discourse, and political movement
Case study: Thailand political unrest in 2006-2010
A Research Paper presented by:
Chidchon Chansilpa
(Thailand)
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining the degree of
MASTERS OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Specialization:
Poverty studies and policy analysis
(POV)
Members of the Examining Committee:
Dr.Andrew M. Fischer (Supervisor)
Dr.Thanh Dam Truong (Reader)
The Hague, the Netherlands
December 2012
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to show my gratitude to my Supervisor Dr. Andrew M. Fischer and my Reader Dr.Thanh Dam Truong for all the expert comments, valuable guidance and abundant patience and understanding. Also, I extend appreciation to my discussants for their feedbacks and to Kanokkarn Tevapitak for advising and encouraging me throughout the study process.
Undoubtedly, my appreciation needs to go to the residents of Nang Loeng community who kindly responded to my interview requests, especially Mrs.Suwan Welployngam for the endless hospitality.
Contents
List of Acronyms vi
Abstract vii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 1
1.3 Objectives and Research Questions 2
1.4 Research Methods and Limitations 3
1.4.1 Research Methods 3
1.4.2 Limitations 4
Chapter 2 Concepts and Analytical Framework 5
2.1 Introduction 5
2.2 Discourse Analysis 5
2.3 Frame Alignment 5
2.4 Inequality-Induced Conflict 6
2.5 Collective Identity 6
2.6 Populism and Democracy 6
2.7 Analytical Framework 7
Chapter 3 Data Analysis 8
3.1 Introduction 8
3.2 The Yellow Shirts’ Discourses 8
3.2.1 Who Are the Yellow Shirts? 8
3.2.2 The Yellow Shirt Protest 9
3.3 The Red Shirts’ Discourses 11
3.3.1 Who Were the Red Shirts? 11
3.3.2 The Red Shirts Protest Mobilization 14
3.4 The Red Shirts’ “Prai-Ammart” Discourse and the Analysis 16
3.5 Conclusion 20
Chapter 4 Symbolization of the Politicized Discourse 21
4.1 Introduction 21
4.2 Symbolizing the Concept of Inequality in Political Protest 21
4.2.1 Thaksin, Populism, and Pro-democracy Movement 21
4.3 Amplifying the Concept of Inequality 23
4.3.1 The Role of the Elite and the Use of Media in Mobilization 23
4.3.2 The Leaders’ Role 23
4.3.3 Leaders-People Relations 24
4.3.4 The Use of Media 26
4.4 Conclusion 29
Chapter 5 Conclusion 30
5.1 The Root Cause of the Inequality-Induced Political Protest 30
5.2 How the Concept of Inequality was Used to Mobilize the Protest 31
References 34
List of Acronyms
PAD People’s Alliance for Democracy
UDD United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship
TDRI Thailand Development Research Institute
Abstract
This research paper explores how inequality can be politicized in social mobilization for structural change. The case of urban protests in Bangkok involving two main groups, the Yellow Shirt and the Red Shirt during 2006-2010 is examined, with a focus on the discourse how the Yellow and the Red Shirt socially constructs issues of “inequality” in an attempt to mobilize a broad base of support that connects rural people with those living and working in the metropolitan areas. The paper situates the main actors in the protest, showing how the Red Shirt leaders, who are political elites themselves, have manage to create unity by bringing up many issues related to inequality and their attack on the political agenda of their opponent. In doing so how they could attract the support of many individuals and groups who took part in the protest. Using field research data involving six people from different backgrounds, the paper shows how those who took part in the protest perceived themselves as ‘poor’ and contrast these perceptions with the normative definitions of poverty and exclusion. The perception of Red shirt supporters in the areas selected by this study seems to reflect the same direction of the agitation by the protest leaders and the Red shirt supported media. During the time of the protest the Red Shirts widely use the feudalist term such as “Prai” or “serf”, to identify themselves and to differentiate themselves from their opponents, the Yellow shirts whom they referred to as the ‘aristocrats’ or ‘ammart’. This construction of opposing positions also has a clear cut distinction between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in terms of access to power in decision-making rather than poverty and inequality per se. The emerging picture suggests that poverty became an identity of the Red shirt protesters during their actions, despite the fact that the leaders did not bring many agendas directly related to poverty reduction. The role of Thaksin Shinawatra became more important at this stage as a symbol of “inequality revolution” since his populist policy had major positive impact in inequality alleviation, which linked directly to democracy. In conclusion, the vision of a society advocated by the Red shirts seems to depict one in which feudal forms of power and distinction should not prevail. ‘Inequality’ and ‘poverty’ have been politicized to fuel movements that aspire for democratic rule with full inclusion in decision-making without the exclusionary practices of the aristocracy.
Keywords
Inequality, politics, movement mobilization, conflict, Thailand
ii
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Thailand political situation has not been in its most stable position in the past decade. Large scale political protests have been constantly taken place in Bangkok during 2006-2010. It is generally believed that the country was facing extreme political polarization (The Asia Foundation 2010). The segregation of two different classes became clearer. The explicit polarization has ignited when the Yellow shirts protesters, who later on seen as elites or the upper class, started their protest against Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister at the time. The protesters’ identity based on the collective belief of the royal loyalists since the main agenda, except for Thaksin’s involvement in corruption, was the accusation of royal subversion[1]. As a result of the movement, the Prime Minister was overthrown by a military coup in mid 2000s, caused frustration to his supporters. Thus, they began to demonstrate in the name of democracy against the coup. The chronicle demonstrations developed to violence[2].
The research paper aims to understand how inequality can be politicized in social mobilization for structural change. The study elaborates the process and the use of constructed ‘inequality discourses’ that the protest leaders brought up to the mobilization. The paper uses Discourse analysis through media, literature, and interviews conducted in the selected area as research methods.
In the first chapter, the paper provides Historical context of how the situation emerged. Mainly, the actors in the situations comprised of two different groups creating for and adopting discourse from one another. The Yellow shirts, which referred by their opponent as ‘the aristocrats’, symbolized themselves by behaving as the gatekeeper of conservative power. Meanwhile, the Red shirts who actively introduced themselves as ‘the serf’ or the poor were seen as the progressive one. The following chapters of this research paper provide the gist of related historical context that seems to be the ground for the grievance that started the movements. The academic trend widely used to explain this phenomenon of the rapid emergence of these political-oriented social movements will be presented, together with findings and analysis from the fieldwork to examine whether they are suggesting in the same direction.
1.2 Statement of the problem
The political situation that happened in the past decade has clearly been creating changes in Thai society. This situation shows that inequality that has been structurally embedded throughout the history of the country was brought explicitly up to mobilize the Red shirt movement. On the contrary, the same issue did not seem to be very pressing in the agenda of the Yellow shirt movements.
The initial understanding of people about the Yellow shirt movement is that they were protesting against Thaksin Shinawatra for corruption cases[3] and the accusation of disloyalty to the monarchy, while some scholars suggested otherwise[4]. The participants of this group were of better backgrounds comparing to their opponent in terms of education and economic status (Sathitniramai 2010). On the contrary, the Red shirt movement was formed as a response to the action of the conservative structural gatekeepers, namely the Yellow shirts. The Red shirt movement has made creatively use of media in order to utilize the notion of inequality to unite, symbolize, and legitimize their movement in order to achieve their goals of ‘democracy redemption’ by bringing the self-exiled former Prime Minister back to the country. Yet, in spite of the clear perception the society have to the movement, within the Red shirt supporters there were various groups of people joining in the movement rather than a homogeneous group as the Yellow shirts.
Because of the complexity of the reason, upon which the grievance was built, in this study, the attention will be paid on the causality of the movements and process how the Red shirts creating the image the society have about them. The significance of understanding these two questions should provide the coherent understanding between the Red shirt supporters and the non-supporters.
1.3 Objectives and research questions
This research paper seeks to find the basic understanding of the situation from both the Yellow and the Red shirts movement. Yet, the focus of the paper lies toward how the notion of inequality was used and perceived by the Red shirt leaders, academics, and the protesters themselves. In doing so, it is needed to examine what were the strong root causes of the grievance used as a catalyst factor to draw individuals out to join the protests. Also, it is necessary to examine the standpoint of the both sides since the formulation of the Red shirt can be seen as an encounter reaction to the Yellow shirt movement[5].
The core research question of this paper will base on two anchor questions. The first is “how was the concept of inequality used to mobilize political movements in Thailand during 2006-2010?” However, in order to answer that question, another question must be first responded. The question is “what was the causality of both movements?” These questions also involve with a few sub-questions formulated to give more insight in understanding the two research questions. The sub-questions are...
- What were the protest agendas?
- Who were the actors; who joined and mobilized the agenda?
- How did the Red shirt symbolize ‘inequality’ to their movement?
- What was the role of media in the mobilization?
These questions will formulate understanding about the causality of the situations and clarify what triggered individuals’ will to join the movement. By answering these sub-questions, the perception of the protesters shall be more easily to understand what the motivation for the participants was, why they chose to join the movement, and more importantly, why are they still holding on to the movement’s principles.
1.4 Research methods and limitations
1.4.1 Research Methods
The research methods used in this paper can be categorized into 3 sections; literature review, media analysis, and qualitative interview.
The literature review used is collected form books, journal, working papers, reports, and online resources on and by the Red shirt. Also, theoretical literature on discourse analysis, micro-mobilization, etc is used to expand border of theoretical framework. These helped formulating understanding both theoretically and practically about the topic.
Media analysis method is also used to examine how the notion of poverty was represented among the Red shirt leaders, scholars and public figures. This method is proceeded by analyzing videos recorded during series of protest in the past few years, shared links on social media, from Red shirt participant’s DVDs collection, talk shows, and news channel that belong to the Red shirt. Therefore, these mediums can give more insight about how they represented themselves and communicate within the group and to others.
Qualitative interview techniques are used to gather the primary data. A field research was undertaken during July-August 2012. In-depth interview was chosen in order to understand perceptions of the informants. The selected area was Nang Loeng, Bangkok where the residents of the community[6] were highly politically active because the community is located in walking distance to the political protest area used by the Red and the Yellow shirt participants, located also close to the parliament. The importance of the location brought about the unavoidable contact to the protest. In general, residents of this community had more reasons than people who lived far away from this area, to be exposed to the protests even if they were apolitical. First of all they could have friends or relatives who were protesters and because of the culture makes people like to share their opinions on things including politics. But more importantly, some of the residents sold food and beverages in the rally area; therefore, they had to unavoidably listen to the protest. Furthermore, during the violent insurgence in 2010, the community had lost one of their adolescence, while many others injured because the non-resident Red shirt protesters threatened to set their community to fire. The significance of this situation was the fact that the people had emotional impact from the situation, yet the informants continued to support the Red shirt movement. Nonetheless, the community’s residents had diverse background in terms of experiences, education, economic, political, and social status which led to different political point of views. Six of the residents of the community were interviewed and gave insight about how they as Red shirts supporters saw themselves, as well as the political situations which directly affected their lives. The data and quotes gathered from the field work will be used to support the media and secondary data analysis.
1.4.2 Limitations
Time constraint is one of the major limitations of this research paper. It is not because of the amount of time provided to spend in gathering and analyzing the data, but the fact that the physical protest was ended over years, while the issues related to it has been continuously developed and created an impact on the perception of the informants. Therefore, it is necessary to note that the collected information might not contain exactly the same perception as what the informants used to have during the protests.
Secondly, while some information is still provided online, many others such as community radio program used to broadcast news cannot be found anymore. Despite the continuation of the stations, yet the content and the style have been changed. Thus, data collection could not be comprehensively gathered.