Modern Monarchs and Democracy: Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej and Juan Carlos of Spain

Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand

Contrary to Juan Carlos, Bhumibol had not been prepared to be king. From an early age Juan Carlos was utilised by his father, Don Juan, as a tool to restore the monarchy in Spain, which had been abolished in 1931 – a throne to which Don Juan was the legitimate heir.

In contrast, Prince Mahidol, father of Bhumibol and his elder brother Ananda, did not seem to care much about the Siamese monarchy, entrenched as it was in pomp and ritual. Most of the time, Bhumibol's father preferred to stay overseas with his young family. Hence, as Handley writes, when Prince Mahidol “fell direly ill in 1928, he implored Sayre [the throne's American advisor] to prevent either boy from being placed on the throne if he died” (Handley 2006a: 14). His wishes were ignored when Ananda was named successor to King Prajadhipok, who chose to abdicate in 1935, three years after the overthrow of Siam's absolute monarchy in 1932. At an age when Juan Carlos was left alone at a grim boarding school in Switzerland where he was to prepare for the royal tasks ahead, Bhumibol and his brother Ananda – also residing in the royal sanctuary of Switzerland – were mostly kept at a distance from royal duties and the struggles in Thailand by their mother, Sangwal, who “was determined that [Ananda] have a normal childhood” (Handley 2006a: 59).

Back in Siam, royalists worked hard to undermine the new parliamentary system, lobbying for foreign support and against the coup's civilian leader Pridi Bhanomyong; spreading rumours; undermining the government; boycotting the establishment of political parties; revolting; inciting Chinese riots against the People's Party; and sowing discontent within the military, which became the new centre of Thai power (Copeland 1993: 207–211; Handley 2006a: 49–53).

Although over the following years military Prime Minister Phibun Sonkhram successfully weakened the court, royals were still actively manipulating the course of Thai politics when in mid-1946, shortly after his return to Thailand, King Ananda was found shot in his room in the royal residence of Borom Phiman – ten years before Juan Carlos allegedly shot his brother Alfonsito. ²

Bhumibol succeeded his brother. He was a young and relatively untrained king, vulnerable to whispers from his royal advisors, who had years of experience in political backroom operations. The absolute monarchy lay only 14 years in the past, and as clever intriguers with vivid memories of the days of noble rule, senior princes – most notably Prince Rangsit and Prince Dhani Nivat – used the death of Ananda to discredit the liberal post-war government and to revive royal myths and rituals. They tried to teach Bhumibol their version of Thai culture and history, which was essentially anti-democratic and paternalistic in nature. Arguing that electoral democracy was not suitable for Thailand, that people were not educated enough to wisely cast their votes and that Thai kings are democratically “elected” by consent of the people, they attempted to infuse the young king with their conservative views. ³

Whereas during the formative years of the constitutional system civic education may indeed have been necessary to make democracy work, the idea of a backward populace unable to self-govern became a convenient excuse for later regimes to introduce Thai-style democracy, which was actually veiled authoritarianism.

An image was propagated of the king as the “Father of the Nation,” who knew best what was good for his subjects, thereby promoting a paternalistic version of Thai social order that reinforces mutual dependencies and enforces loyalty at all levels, from family life to politics.

In their endeavour to restore the old order, monarchists were supported by the military, the US Cold War logic and, later, emerging business elites who capitalised on ideas of a hierarchically ordered society in which the haves exert control over the have-nots. When long-time Prime Minister Phibun lost support from those conservative forces in the mid 1950s and, in need of legitimacy, once more turned himself into a democrat, Bhumibol began to “test his political muscle” (Handley 2006a: 134). Although he won the elections in 1957, Phibun was ousted in a coup led by military strongman Sarit Thannarat, who was backed by the palace. Sarit's ascendancy and the power vacuum left by his death in 1963 heralded the start of excessive royalism. ⁴

Instead of continuing with a chronological account it should suffice to quote Thongchai (2008: 11), who states that “the monarchy and the monarchists […] have probably played the most significant role in shaping Thai democracy since 1932.” He goes on to write that “with distaste for electoral politics […] they have undermined electoral democracy in the name of ‘clean’ politics versus the corruption of politicians” (Thongchai 2008: 11).

In letting royalists hijack democratic discourses for their own benefit (Ünaldi forthcoming), Bhumibol – willingly or not – allowed himself be turned into a demigod of dhammic righteousness. Charity projects funded by donations and income from the enormous institutional wealth of the Thai monarchy help to portray Bhumibol via loyal media, kept in check by the lèse majesté law, as the better ruler compared to the corrupt game of democratic politics. ⁵ Thus the Thai people's loyalty has been diverted away from political institutions. These weak institutions then provide the basis for clientelism, as Baker (2008) notes about network politics: “This is a very practical fact in a society where institutions do not always work as they should and personal contacts are what get things done.”

Royalist historiography places the king at the centre of democratic development, glossing over the achievements of the Thai people in their pursuit of freedom and participation and reinterpreting the popular uprisings of 1973 and 1992 to present the monarch as the saviour of liberalism. ⁶ When “goodness” becomes the prerogative and source of power for a monarch, others will less likely be permitted to undermine that power in doing good, too. This might in part explain Bhumibol's hostile stance towards a welfare state, stating that the “individual on welfare will be a useless person for the community and even for himself” (in Hewison 1997: 67). Furthermore, considering its economic interests, it might not be too surprising that the Thai monarchy does not promote big government but takes a rather conservative approach to public spending. ⁷

When the state neglects welfare policies, a benign monarch gains ground and his subjects start to put faith in his benevolence. In November 2007 Chatree, an impoverished 12-year-old boy from Phichit Province, sent a letter to “the Father of the Nation […] as the last hope” to ask for a house and education (The Nation 2007). The king sent help. A week later, a follow-up of the story was published in the Bangkok Post, printing, “[h]is Majesty is there to help his subjects and his great generosity is for anyone, without discrimination – no matter how small a person is.” The author used the opportunity to place blame on politicians, warning that

It is ironic that it was the “network monarchy” – the “leading [political] network of the period 1973–2001 […] centred on the palace” (McCargo 2005: 499) – that helped Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra come to power in 2001 (McCargo 2005: 513). After Thaksin fell from grace with the network and, in 2006, was ousted in a coup – a tactic that was also used to resolve the political crisis in the mid-1970s mentioned earlier – the military Council for National Security neither initiated a debate over the reasons for Thaksin's popularity in the countryside – which would have exposed the insufficiency of the royally initiated projects in rural Thailand – nor did their government do better at answering middle-class demands for incorruptible leaders. Instead, they enacted the Internal Security Act, which gave the military special power in times of crisis – probably with the goal of achieving military control over the royal succession.

Apart from toppling Thaksin as a rival kingmaker (see Thongchai 2006: 4; 2008: 30; Handley 2006b) and serving the various interests of his critics in the military, the business sector and the middle classes, the coup also tried to restore the palace's hegemony, especially over Thaksin's strong rural constituency, but this attempt was unsuccessful: Times had changed. Even the harshest critics of Thaksin suspect that his so-called “populist policies” had a positive impact. Giles (2001: 15) saw them as “an indication of social pressure from below and the re-entry of class struggle into parliamentary politics.” Connors (2008: 161) remarks that recent debates about the monarchy have “greatly affected its standing, especially among supporters of Thaksin's social and economic policies” and that this “offers the possibility of the emergence of a more widespread egalitarian sentiment to challenge the hierarchical […] sentiment that surrounds the monarchy.” Anti-monarchy tendencies have become apparent among groups within the red shirt movement. Posters and slogans of those groups rarely make positive references to the monarchy. During the peak of the red shirts’ protests in April and May 2010, there were images of King Taksin on an altar behind the stage where the red leaders prepared for their speeches in downtown Bangkok. King Taksin (r. 1768–82) was dethroned and executed by the first king of the currently ruling Chakri dynasty. Some dedicated followers of Thaksin are said to consider him a reincarnation of King Taksin and the executor of the latter's revenge against the current regime (Thahanek Krungthon 2010). Some works of graffiti and certain chants created by red shirts contain direct attacks against the sacred charisma of the monarchy and place blame for the killing of fellow demonstrators on people in high places (Ünaldi forthcoming). The excessive use of the lèse majesté law (Streckfuss 2011) by authorities smells of desperation in the wake of tectonic discursive shifts.

Juan Carlos of Spain

The king of Spain rarely smiles. Preston (2005: 1) explains the “perpetually sad look” of Juan Carlos as compared to his cheerful nature as a boy by citing the tensions in his life as a member of the Bourbon (Borbón) dynasty and as a human being. This interpretation resembles the common view of Bhumibol as burdened by the duty of kingship.

Apart from similarities in appearance, other parallels can be drawn. Both kings were born in foreign countries, spent their early years in the royal sanctuary of Lausanne and, later, lost their brothers to gunshots. In addition, both were raised or influenced by conservative reactionaries and had to lend authority to military dictatorships. However, the main difference between the two is also the central myth of the life of Juan Carlos:

To explore this mystery, one has to go back to 1931 when the Spanish monarchy was abolished, a republic declared, and King Alfonso XIII, who had backed a coup against a liberal constitutional regime in 1923, was sent into exile, deprived of his citizenship and possessions. Alfonso went not without calling on his supporters to undermine the new republic so that the Spaniards would eventually beg for his return (Preston 2005: 2). Over the following years, monarchists in Spain funded emerging fascist groups, catered to middle-class insecurity, “opted for violent extremism” and, in doing so, made “the first deliberate attempt to undermine the [new] democratic system” (Preston 1972: 89–90, 100–101). There is no need to mention in detail the striking parallels to royal activities in Thailand after 1932.

The growing polarisation between and within the right and the left, encouraged by Alfonsists and other so-called “catastrophists,” was fuelled by international developments and made civil war inevitable. In January 1938, Juan Carlos was born to Don Juan, son of Alfonso and heir to the vanished Spanish throne, and his wife Doña María. The Spanish Civil War was still raging but was eventually won by rightist General Francisco Franco in 1939. Against the hopes of the exiled Bourbon dynasty, the monarchy was not restored. Instead, Franco established a fascist dictatorship with a strong anti-monarchical wing, the Falange.

In 1941, former King Alfonso died in Rome, disappointed by his onetime ally, Franco, who did not allow the king's body to return to Spain – much like Phibun, whose government did not provide for Prajadhipok's cremation in Thailand (Handley 2006a: 60). Franco took on some monarchical traditions himself, assuming the headship of state, dispensing titles of nobility, naming bishops, issuing decrees, letting the royal march be played at his own public appearances; in short, he assumed “power of a kind previously enjoyed only by the kings of medieval Spain” (Preston 2005: 14–15, 39). In his endeavour to “seek a way out of centuries of decadence” (Preston 2005: 68), he linked “the greatness of imperial Spain with modern fascism” (Preston 2005: 19) with a totalitarian monarchy modelled after the fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Catholic monarchs. In contrast to Franco, Phibun, who has likewise been labelled a fascist dictator, rejected the absolute kingship of the historical kingdom Ayutthaya in favour of a supposedly more egalitarian Sukhothai kingship, using history to undermine royal absolutism and to promote an approachable and quasi-democratic leadership (Beemer 1999: ch. 6). Therefore, Phibun made it somewhat easier for the monarchy of the Ninth Reign to smoothly link itself with the past, whereas the medieval version of monarchy Franco promoted in Spain made it necessary for Juan Carlos to refashion Spanish kingship himself if he would or could not continue the Franco dictatorship.

After moving to Switzerland in 1942, Don Juan chose as his son's first mentor the ultra-conservative Eugenio Vegas Latapié, a staunch royalist who had been active in the ideological fight against the republic, comparable to the conservative Thai Princes Dhani and Rangsit. With his rejection of democracy, his nostalgia for the Spanish Empire and a vision of a military kingship in mind, “he laid the basis for the boy's later conservatism” (Preston 2005: 17). Yet, Don Juan became a regulating force in Juan Carlos’ life. He was the stern but farsighted father Bhumibol never had. When Juan Carlos refused to learn English because his mentor Latapié had painted Britain as Spain's archenemy, Don Juan asked Queen Elizabeth on one occasion to sit next to Juan Carlos at the lunch table “so that he feels ashamed at being unable to answer your questions” (in Preston 2005: 65). After this experience, Juan Carlos swallowed his patriotism and started to learn English.

Contrary to how he handled Juan Carlos’ brother, Alfonsito, who spent much time with his parents, Don Juan tried to toughen his eldest son up for later tasks. And so he left him alone at a boarding school in Switzerland when the rest of the family moved to Estoril, Portugal, in 1946. Don Juan pointed out the advantages of the solitary life in exile as compared to life in a palace where “the atmosphere of adulation so often clouded the vision of the powerful” (in Preston 2005: 23).

The restoration of the Spanish throne remained Don Juan's main objective. Hence, in 1948 he met with Franco and consented to send Juan Carlos to Spain for education. He understood that Franco was the key to the future of the monarchy. With a vivid memory of the turbulent Second Republic in mind, royalists in Spain as well as Western powers abroad preferred Francoist stability to the uncertainties of a restoration. Franco, in turn, concluded that Spain must once again become a monarchy after his death because the alternative, a republic, had proven disastrous in his eyes. At age ten, Juan Carlos was “sold into slavery” (Preston 2005: 1) in Spain to be educated in the spirit of Francoism. Yet, Don Juan had carte blanche to pick his son's tutors at his school outside of Madrid with its liberal headmaster José Garrido Casanova. The lawyer Torcuato Fernández-Miranda, who was entrusted with Juan Carlos’ political education when he took up his university studies in 1960, became an important mentor for the future king. Though handpicked by Franco and deeply conservative, he taught Juan Carlos patience, the value of debate, and to think independently (Preston 2005: 151–152).

Occasionally, Franco presented Juan Carlos with his version of history, advising him to avoid aristocrats and courtiers (Preston 2005: 90). In contrast to Bhumibol, Juan Carlos came to intimately know the country he would be ruling over and its major players from an early age and from various ideological perspectives.

Yet, it was not at all certain that Juan Carlos would follow Franco as king and head of state. The 1947 Ley de Sucesión (Law of Succession) institutionalised Spain as a monarchy, making it easier for Western powers to accept the dictatorship. But, until his death, Franco remained head of state and retained the prerogative of naming his royal successor, playing potentials off against each other. Don Juan, although the rightful claimant to the throne, was an unlikely candidate, with an English mother and an all-too-liberal education. Franco wanted to install his own monarchy, preferring Juan Carlos. Yet, to strengthen his own position vis-à-vis Don Juan, Franco promoted other candidates: Alfonso de Borbón y Dampierre, the son of Don Juan's elder brother Don Jaime, who had renounced his rights to the throne in 1933; Don Jaime himself; the Carlist pretender Don Javier; and even Franco's own grandson.

The Spanish Crown went through decades of uncertainty incomparable in scale to the Thai case. Traditional sources of royal legitimacy were constantly undermined. Considering that the Thai coup plotters of 1932 even in their most direct criticism of the monarchy could not free themselves from using court language (Sombat 1992), Franco's reply in 1943 to a call by Don Juan for national reconciliation and royal restoration is telling:

In 1958 Franco, who regarded himself a modern Columbus, unsuccessfully tried to prevent Don Juan from crossing the Atlantic in his own yacht (Preston 2005: 124, 126–127). In contrast, Bhumibol's 14-hour sailing trip across the Gulf of Thailand in 1966 was presented as a great accomplishment, proving royal virtue (Handley 2006a: 158).

Don Juan crossed the Atlantic as a way to help get over the death of his youngest son, Alfonsito, who had died of a gunshot wound two years earlier at age 14 in Estoril while playing alone in a room with his brother, Juan Carlos. It is generally accepted that it was Juan Carlos who accidently pulled the revolver's trigger. This version has never been denied by the royal family, although an official enquiry was not conducted. Basque author Sverlo implies possible ulterior motives when he argues that Alfonsito was more intelligent than Juan Carlos and was Don Juan's favourite son. ⁸ Sverlo (n. y.: 35) mentions rumours that Alfonsito might have been chosen by Don Juan to succeed him if he were given the throne, whereas Franco favoured Juan Carlos, who was “more manageable, just in line with what was needed to continue the [Francoist] regime under the direction of his followers.”

Contrary to Bhumibol's brother, Ananda, Alfonsito did not posthumously become a political tool given the undeniable involvement of Juan Carlos, the passive confirmation of this version by monarchists, and Don Juan's dependence on Franco, who, for his part, did not want to draw attention to the incident because “people do not like princes who are out of luck,” as Franco reportedly commented (in Preston 2005: 105).

Back in Spain, Juan Carlos was kept busy courting sympathy from classmates and the public. During his time at the military academy in Zaragoza, starting in 1955, he had to defend his father's name from attacks by the anti-royalist Falange press, the Falange being the regime's fascist core. It would probably never cross Juan Carlos’ mind that his position in Spain was secure, let alone divine. With broad anti-monarchical movements on the political right and, needless to say, among communists and socialists, and a dictator gambling with royal figures on a chessboard, Juan Carlos decided to take part in initiation rites at the military academy, preventing others from treating him deferentially, using his status to the benefit of his comrades and letting people address him informally (Preston 2005: 95–100).

After the total failure of an economic model based on national self-sufficiency in the mid-1950s, technocrats of the Catholic lay organisation Opus Dei took over the regime's administration, introducing economic liberalisation which eventually led to an economic boom for Spain in the 1960s – at a time when Thailand, too, was experiencing a stable period of growth. Mounting anti-government protests, which were at times brutally suppressed, the liberalisation of the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), and the growing appeal of European integration were accompanied by the fading health of Franco who, in 1969, officially declared Juan Carlos his successor, thereby severely worsening the relationship between Juan Carlos and an embittered Don Juan, who had harboured hopes of becoming king himself. ⁹ On 20 January 1975 El Caudillo died, believing that the institutions he had established would keep Juan Carlos’ regime on the same track:

As heir to Franco, Juan Carlos was considered a weak puppet. To prove his critics wrong and to prevent the monarchy from becoming a mere rubber stamp for the continuation of the ancien régime, Juan Carlos had to decide whether to exert his extensive constitutional and executive powers to link himself with Spain's authoritarian past or to give Spanish kingship new legitimacy by turning it into a catalyst of democracy and accommodating his critics on the left and right. His stern and comparably down-to-earth upbringing and historical as well as political consciousness made him choose the latter option. Also, his father declared he would renounce his right to the throne only if Juan Carlos implemented full democratic reforms (Preston 2005: 321–322).

Contrary to Bhumibol, who in times of crisis had no constitutional responsibility to intervene in politics, Juan Carlos had been entrusted with direct authority. As Bernecker (1998: 72) puts it, “Juan Carlos […] was far more powerful than any other monarch in Europe.” Hence, in close collaboration with his advisors and mentors, Juan Carlos assigned posts to pragmatic politicians and managed to sidestep the stubborn old guard. Juan Carlos and his close aides chose the young and able Adolfo Suárez as prime minister. Importantly, the king toured the country to gain popular support for the transition. Through his personal military friendships and his position as Franco's successor, Juan Carlos could keep most generals in check. Meanwhile, he became convinced – not least by the example of his father, who was close to the democratic opposition – that the legalisation and inclusion of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE – Partido Comunista de España) was crucial for the consolidation of the coming constitutional system.

Inevitably, the military resisted the dismantling of the old regime. Two planned coups in 1978 and 1979 were averted, in part because the government limited the supply of munitions and fuel. Repeatedly calling on soldiers to respect the rule of law and constitutional norms, Juan Carlos made it clear that a coup would not have his backing. However, rumours flourished that generals were lobbying for a government of national salvation under the leadership of General Alfonso Armada, who was on good terms with the king. When, at the beginning of 1981, Suárez resigned as PM, Juan Carlos did not give in to Armada but, on 10 February, invited Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, member of the ruling Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD – Unión de Centro Democrático), to form a government. Yet, giving his co-conspirators the impression that the king would back a coup, Armada went on with his plans. On 23 February Colonel Antonio Tejero, accompanied by 320 members of the Guardia Civil, stormed the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, and took the parliamentarians hostage. Over the next several hours, Juan Carlos and his aides rang various strategic players to undermine the coup-makers’ claim that the putsch was carried out in the name of the king. “Only he stood between Spanish democracy and its destruction,” Preston (2005: 475) writes. At 1:15 a.m. Juan Carlos appeared on television, ending his brief speech with the following statement:

Even if one wants to believe that Juan Carlos was involved in an unsuccessful “constitutional” or “smooth” coup, ¹⁰ he did not agree to a tearing up of the constitution, to whose success he had dedicated himself. Finally, in 1982, the socialist PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) won the general elections, fulfilling an old prediction by Don Juan to his son that “the monarchy would not be fully consolidated until it had coexisted with a socialist government” (Preston 2005: 431). The Spanish democracy matured, contravening Franco's assertions that “the Spanish temperament made liberal experiments disastrous” (Preston 2005: 196) and that a democratic system would unleash “Spain's family demons” amongst which he ranks a “lack of cooperative endeavour” (Preston 2005: 203). History proved him wrong.

Spain – Structures

Spain has long been treated as an exceptional part of Europe. The Iberian Peninsula of the nineteenth century was regarded by romantics as a harmonious, backward region which had deliberately preserved old social structures and values. In the eyes of these observers the Spanish Inquisition had successfully fended off Northern intellectualism. Localism and traditional morality had been preserved in Spanish villages studied by Anglo-Saxon anthropologists of that time. ¹¹ However, what had long been overlooked was the history of liberal struggle in Spain and the many breaks with tradition.

With the Habsburg succession in 1516 – Charles I (r. 1516–56) ruled simultaneously as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V – humanist thinking gained ground among Spanish intellectuals (Kamen 2000: 154–155; Barton 2004: 159–160). The Bourbon succession in 1700 was followed by centralising measures and a growing spirit of the Enlightenment under Charles III (r. 1759–88). When, after the invasion of Spain by Napoleonic troops in 1808, the Spanish king had to abdicate, Spaniards rebelled against foreign rule. They revived the Cortes, an ancient institution of local parliaments composed of magnates, prelates and representatives of towns dating back to the early thirteenth century (Barton 2004: 78–79, 138).

Though not genuinely representative, the Cortes summoned in Cádiz in 1810 was of great importance:

In 1812, the Cortes drafted a constitution that established a liberal parliamentary monarchy. Yet, after his return to Spain in 1814, the popular King Ferdinand VII abrogated the constitution as he saw no need for constitutional restraints on his power. In 1820 a revolution was led by disaffected military officers who had been denied promotions – the similarities to Thailand in 1932 are evident. They joined the liberals and “proclaimed” the 1812 constitution, whereupon Ferdinand had to agree to become a constitutional monarch. With this first pronunciamento, as each Spanish coup came to be known, the foundations for a turbulent political future were laid (Barton 2004: 164–167, 169–171; Herr 2000: 197–201). In 1823 the authoritarian powers took revenge and killed the liberal leaders of the 1820 revolution with the consent of large parts of the population, who, as Herr (2000: 203) puts it, “still largely devout, would not defend a constitution that gave them the vote but, as their preachers told them, threatened their salvation.”

However, to fanatical Catholics Ferdinand was still too enlightened and not absolute enough, making it necessary for the king to ally himself with moderate liberals. When Ferdinand died in 1833, the throne fell to his daughter Isabella II, to the outrage of radical royalists who wanted to see Ferdinand's hardline brother, Don Carlos, on the throne. Carlism was born and the Carlist dynasty remained a constant threat to Ferdinand's royal lineage.

The following decades were dominated by pronunciamentos, formalised coups, executed by generals on behalf of the Moderate or the Progressive Party, which alternated being in power. The system somewhat resembled Thailand's twentieth-century experience. What remained of 1812 were economic liberalism and modern political institutions, whereas social reforms were abandoned. An urban bourgeoisie teamed up with the traditional landowning aristocracy and – as in Thailand – “political power was to become a particular preserve of an ‘enlightened’ middle class” (Barton 2004: 185). Spain in the nineteenth century had its own Phibuns, Sarits and Prems. As Lambert (1982: 14) put it, “[t]he Iberian Peninsula [… was] the ‘Third World’ of that period,” when modern political structures clashed with a traditional society.

In the 1860s, Queen Isabella lost patience with the constitutional system and appointed reactionary governments to office (Barton 2004: 190). Large sections of the Spanish populace grew increasingly impatient with their queen, who had earned a bad reputation. The leaders of another pronunciamento in 1868 sent Isabella into exile and, in the wake of this “Glorious Revolution” proclaimed a progressive constitution. In 1873 a short-lived republic was established, dissolving into chaos the following year. Alfonso XII, son of Isabella, was restored as king and the Restoration system was installed. The monarchy was weakened until Alfonso XIII reached majority age and reasserted his prerogatives (Lambert 1982: 18).

The system of constitutional monarchy guided by the elite eventually collapsed as it “could not accommodate new forces” (Lambert 1982: 19). In the 1910s, the established political party system broke down due to the emergence of new social and political forces, leading Alfonso XIII to back the establishment of a military dictatorship in 1923. The unresolved problem of accommodating new political demands – a problem Thailand is currently facing – led to the Second Republic (1931–36) and the Spanish Civil War.

When Juan Carlos became king he understood that he could not repeat the mistakes of his royal ancestors and the political right. As Preston states:

After more than 150 years of liberal struggle, Spaniards finally had to be given a voice in a democratic system. Yet, as Bernecker (1998: 77) notes, of the three Weberian types of legitimate domination – traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal – “Juan Carlos then had at his disposal […] only one: the legal” (see also Weber 1978: 215). Juan Carlos’ legal right to rule had its roots in the Francoist state, thus initially giving the king a “backward legitimacy”:

When, in 1977, Don Juan finally renounced his rights to the throne and dynastic harmony was restored, Juan Carlos was finally able to start building on the traditional source of legitimacy. Yet, Bernecker (1998: 78) points out that the strongest source of legitimacy was neither legal nor traditional but that “deriving from the democratic charisma” of the Spanish monarchy. “Therefore, given the various options of legitimising his rule, Juan Carlos and his advisors chose the democratic-charismatic,” notes Bernecker, who goes on to argue that

Likewise, Gunther (1992: 44) notes that in Spain, with all its historic breaks, “there has been no continuous flow of tradition, no continuous transmission of cultural heritage, no continuous process of selection of the past.” Spain had experienced two republics in which kings were absent, along with a fascist dictatorship that constantly devalued the monarchy. Religion – an important feature of Thai kingship – was not available to provide a source of traditional power, either. Preston (personal correspondence, 2008) explains that there might have been a connection between monarchy and Catholicism before 1931, “but not now, other than cordial relations of protocol. Juan Carlos is not head of the Church in the way that the Queen of England is.” Thus, the links to the past were thin. Juan Carlos saw the need to move forward, presenting himself as a “pilot of change.”

Other structural factors which contributed to a successful elite settlement in Spain that I will briefly mention here are the demands of Spanish capitalism, the strength of the movements of dissent (Maravall 1978: 170–171), less ideological polarisation following the economic boom of the 1960s, a gradual extrication of the Spanish military from domestic politics and a limited liberalisation of the political system in anticipation of Franco's death, European integration providing democratic incentives, and a generational change among politicians, which, however, was facilitated by Juan Carlos’ political appointments. It is still important to point out that many circumstances were not favourable:

Thailand – Structures

Compared to the Spanish monarchy, Thailand's ruling Chakri dynasty enjoys historical continuity. The focus here is on Thailand's “institutional continuity spanning centuries and thus transmitting ‘Indianised’ forms, with their accompanying political culture, in a very direct way down to the twentieth century” (Kershaw 2001: 11). Whereas Thai kingship was continually refined over the centuries, combining ideas of righteous kingship with magical divinity, the Spanish monarchy even in its heyday never had a thaumaturgic or magical appeal across society, but practised instead a personalised kingship, receiving petitioners and touring the country (Fernández-Armesto 2000: 122–123).

In contrast to the brief Napoleonic colonisation of Spain, which empowered certain strata of Spanish people in the absence of a king, the project of self-colonisation triggered by the arrival of Western colonial powers to Thailand was an elite project a part of whose purpose was to preserve royal power. And, as already mentioned, the partial absorption of the royal discourse into modernity by the Phibun regime did not radically undermine the ideological strength of the monarchy but made it all that much easier for the Thai nobility to stage a comeback after the fall of the post-revolutionary regime. Connors’ (2007: 271) analysis of the case of Thaksin might also be true for Phibun: “Thaksin's fatal weakness was that while in power he did nothing to challenge royal ideology at an ideological level.” Compared to politics in Francoist Spain with broad anti-monarchical forces on the left and right, the monarchy in Thailand could always harbour hopes of its resurrection in traditional form despite Phibun's leaning toward fascism and his cultural edicts to modernise Thailand. For the most part, Phibun's ideology existed alongside royal ideology, for some time overshadowing it, but the former was seldom expressly directed against the latter. In short, the legitimacy of the monarchy itself was never questioned on a scale comparable to the Spanish case. That means that in 1946, the Thai royalty was simply not yet insecure enough to realise the necessity for “forward legitimation” as opposed to the uncertainty lingering over the Spanish royals. Turning back the clock and reviving and inventing royal rituals by presenting Bhumibol as a modern dhammaraja was still tempting. Applying Weber's (1978) three sources of legitimacy to the Thai case, first and foremost traditional means were used to construct a sacred charisma around Bhumibol, in contrast to the democratic charisma of Juan Carlos. This sacred charisma could then be used to connect Bhumibol with a more modern discourse of rational, democratic leadership, the latter effectively glossing over the underlying and pervading traditionalism, or – in terms of the direction of legitimation – backwardness.

Kershaw, who believes that the Thai king truly aims to lead his people into a self-reliant future dominated neither by the military nor by royal charisma, points to the

Shifting the focus from factors of legitimacy to history it has to be stressed that the centralisation of the Thai state at the end of the nineteenth century had, a century before, already been accomplished in Spain. Hence, a revolution against the centralised absolute monarchy in Spain preceded the Thai revolution of 1932 by almost a century. The radical attempts by Spanish monarchists to regain their power after 1820 lasted over a century until a civil war and a fascist dictatorship caused royalists to agree to a liberal and inclusive system. The struggle of monarchists, sections of the nobility, military, economic elites and the middle class against a full-scale democratisation in nineteenth-century Spain is now shattering Thailand. The impatience of some Thai royalists with the constitutional system bears more resemblance to the conduct of Isabella II in the 1860s and Alfonso XIII in 1923 than to Juan Carlos, as the former monarchs were much closer to tradition than the latter. One could say that Spain needed a civil war in order for the royalists to acknowledge that change was necessary. Thailand's streets recently got soaked in blood, as well, when Thais were killing Thais on Ratchadamnoen Avenue in Bangkok's old city and around Ratchaprasong intersection in the commercial heart of the city.

Finally, comparing other structural factors in the crucial phase of the 1970s in Spain and Thailand, commonalities can be found such as uprisings against the government or communist (in Thailand) and separatist (in Spain) rebellions. Yet, the differences are more important – namely, the Spanish experience of civil war and the resulting historical consciousness of the elite, and, crucially, international developments. Whereas Europe was integrating and exerting pressure on Spain to move forward, Southeast Asia was in the grip of Cold War clashes. The fall of the Lao monarchy in 1975 made it all the easier for the Thai court and its allies to feel threatened.