Building Programmatic Linkages in the Periphery

The Case of the TRT Party in Thailand

Bibliographic Data

ID2317488
AuthorsIllan Nam (Colgate University, corresponding author), Viengrat Nethipo (0000-0002-2849-8504, Chulalongkorn University)
Year2022
Volume50
Issue3
Pages413-454
Publication date2022-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Politics and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1531-426X • E-ISSN: 1548-2456
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00323292211039954
OpenAlexW3199320399
LanguageEN
Citations received4

Did the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party of Thailand, the first party in the country's history to gain parliamentary dominance in 2001, represent a departure from traditional clientelistic Thai parties or was it old wine in a new bottle? This article argues that the TRT represented a new hybrid party that successfully established programmatic linkages in rural parts of the country by systematizing its use of informal social networks in local communities. By routinizing recruitment, training, and evaluation of its parliamentary candidates and their vote-canvassing networks, the TRT imparted midlevel politicians with the incentives and ability to promote the party's policy agenda to rural voters and to cultivate new policy-oriented linkages alongside traditional clientelistic ones. By identifying specific organizational mechanisms by which the TRT combined programmatic and clientelistic linkages with rural voters, this study contributes to literature that examines hybrid party strategies as well as informal party organization

Dominance (genetics · Economics · Incentive · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Politics and Society in Latin America · Public Administration · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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