Contextualizing the Pattaya Summit Debacle: Four April Days, Four Thai Pathologies

The abrupt collapse of the ASEAN Plus Three and East Asian Summits at Pattaya on 11 April 2009 initiated four days of extreme political tension in Thailand. This tension both epitomized the current “red”-“yellow” polarization in Thai politics and society and represented the surface manifestation of deep pathologies in the Thai body politic. Four of these pathologies are the structure of the post-1997 economy, the figure of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the continuing war in the far south and concerns surrounding the end of the current reign. These pathologies leave Thailand in an incipient revolutionary situation, albeit one that must be clearly distinguished from the “revolution” that Thaksin tried to precipitate through street violence in April 2009. The seriousness of Thailand’s pathologies notwithstanding, comparative perspectives offer the hope of peaceful progress towards the emergence of a new, more egalitarian Thailand.