The Continual Breakdown of Democracy in Thailand: A Case Study on the Role of Elite Competition, Modernization and Political Institutions in the Democratization Process of Thailand

The paper provides an in-depth empirical analysis of Thai political history in an attempt to understand why democracy has failed to consolidate since the 1932 revolution that ended the absolute monarchy. To help disentangle Thailand’s complex democratization process, the author engages three salient strands of democratization literature, which she refers to as elite theories, political institutionalist theories, and modernization theories. The author concludes that elite theories are exceedingly relevant in determining political stability in the case of Thailand even in the face of modernization and the political empowerment of lower classes. Further, the author suggests that secondary political institutionalist mechanisms associated with political instability played a direct and important role in the democratic breakdown of 2006; however, the existence of these secondary mechanisms even in a parliamentary democracy suggests that more research could be done to improve the nuances of why and how democratic breakdown can still occur regardless of democratic regime type.