Book Review: Thailand’s political peasants: Power in the modern rural economy

This colourful book argues for a rethink in the relations between peasants in Asia and the state. In contrast to years of thinking influenced by the seminal work of James C. Scott under the framework of ‘resistance’ – or seeking distance – between peasants and the state, this book argues that modern peasants seek to attach themselves to the state. This underlying theme is analyzed using the recent experience of Thailand, and especially the rise and fall of prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

The influence of the ‘resistance’ framework in peasant–state relations has been very strong in Southeast Asian anthropological and political studies. Scott (2009, p. 7, in Walker, p. 57), for example, recently wrote in his book, The Art of Not Being Governed: ‘it was very common for state subjects to run away. Living within the state meant…a condition of servitude…subjects moved with alacrity to the periphery.’ But Walker presents analysis to demonstrate that in Thailand’s modern economy, ‘the modern challenge for middle-income rural dwellers is to bind sources of power into relationships of productive exchange rather than to resist, subvert, or evade them’ (p. 58).

Walker argues that there are significant differences that need to be understood in the analysis of rural–state relations (p. 8). First, peasants are now much richer than commonly thought. Second, middle-income peasants have diversified economies, especially following a decline in subsistence food production. Third, peasants confront a new form of economic disparity – referring to uneven economic development, especially between urban and rural zones. And fourth, the Thai state underpins the peasant economy through subsidies, grants, and other assistance. In turn, these steps also maintain, rather than transform, the middle-income peasantry (p. 56), which has political implications for how changes to the state in turn trigger responses from these people. Walker (pp. 21, 190) draws on the work of Partha Chatterjee (2004) and his analysis of ‘political society’ to denote the productive interaction between peasant culture and the governing practices of the state – noting, of course, that the definition of ‘peasant’ is itself changing and contested.

The book’s main analysis focuses upon some years of fieldwork in the (anonymously named) village of Ban Tiam, in the typical lowlands of northern Thailand: an area with ‘the atmosphere of Switzerland but the economy of Ethiopia’ (p. 31). Walker analyzes state–society relations in parallel fields. Local festivals involve rituals involving spirits from the forest and other sources and indicate ‘a highly localist version of power and potency’ (pp. 27, 86). Everyday contact with the state and state officials contribute to a ‘rural constitution’ (pp. 29, 190) that make up the extensive network of relationships of political society. Economic activities, commerce, and investment also form another arena of analysis, especially concerning the role of state-led projects with community projects in terms of agriculture and forest protection (pp. 30, 143).

These various fields accordingly present an additional way of assessing ‘community.’ Instead of the well-known romanticized notion of an integral unit separate from state and national economy, Walker argues, ‘in Thailand’s new political society, community is a site where external power is domesticated and bound to local livelihoods’ (p. 33).

This analysis then leads to a discussion of how middle-income peasants were connected to the rise of Thaksin. Many politicians have blamed the political persistence of Thaksin on ‘voter irrationality’ – or factors such as the buying of votes, or the parochialism or a lack of political awareness of rural voters. Some studies have also discussed patron-client relationships as the key means of rural politics. Other analysts have pointed too to civil society activities, such as protests against infrastructure such as dams and forest plantations as a more participatory form of rural protest (pp. 191–92). Walker disagrees with both proposals. Instead he argues that first analysis is too simplistic for how political society operates; and the second ‘relies on an imagery of local cultural identity, self-sufficient agriculture, and ecologically–friendly lifestyles…that is largely disconnected from the livelihood aspirations of Thailand’s commercially connected middle-income peasantry’ (p. 192).

Similarly, Walker (pp. 192–94) disagrees with Kerkvliet’s (Kerkvliet 2002) re-adaptation of Scott’s (1985) Weapons of the Weak in the Philippines that emphasizes the operation of political processes within village settings that are often invisible to outsiders. Instead, Walker argues that middle-income peasants are more formally and visibly active – where elections are frequent, and turnouts as high as 80 percent (p. 194). The public engagement with, and regulation of, national politics is what Walker calls the Rural Constitution (p. 194).

Accordingly, Walker charts the rise of Thaksin – in principle, a local man made good, and a potential patron for northern villagers – and argues, ‘there is no ready-made social basis for political mobilization into clearly defined electoral entourages’ (p. 218). There is insufficient evidence to suggest that voters in Ban Tiam automatically fell into either supporting or opposing Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party. But there is evidence that peasants acted formally and informally to discuss, evaluate, and then vote in accordance with the political trends of the time (pp. 210–18). There is also evidence that Thaksin ‘cleverly capitalized on the dilemmas that have emerged in Thailand’s modernization’ (p. 221), by offering cash incentives and investments for an economically sophisticated electorate, who in turn were very willing to vote for these.

Walker eventually argues that Chaterjee’s distinction between civil and political society is overdrawn (pp. 225–26). The state is not necessarily separate from society, and peasants seek to engage with the state, rather than resist it. Similarly, political activity is not separate from the social contexts of belief and tradition within villages. And what is commonly labelled civil society might not in fact represent local interests and beliefs. Walker’s book seeks to update these rather stale visions of peasant politics, and argues ‘rural political society is certainly not perfect, but its everyday role in the democratic life of the nation warrants much more respectful attention’ (p. 231).

Lucidly written and encompassing themes relating to political anthropology and sociology, this book should be read by all scholars of Thai politics, and by anyone interested in theories of political change in modern rural societies.