Where Agency Meets Structure

Understanding Civil-Military Relations in Contemporary Thailand

Bibliographic Data

ID6233603
AuthorsPaul Chambers (0000-0001-8593-9209)
Year2011
Volume19
Issue3
Pages290-304
Publication date2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0218-5377 • E-ISSN: 1750-7812
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02185377.2011.628150
OpenAlexW1967239570
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

Since 1992, Thailand's young democracy has sought to ensure civilian control over its military. Yet since the 2006 coup, the military has become a powerful political actor and Thai democracy has eroded. As such, institutionalizing civilian control has become particularly challenging. This article examines civil-military relations in Thailand and argues that while civilian agents have initiated moves towards political outcomes of civil-military relations, agents’ choices and strategies have only been realized through the conditioning of structure—macro-structural, institutional and ideational factors. The study seeks to answer four questions. First, how have structure and agency played roles in explaining civil-military relations in Thailand's emerging democracy? Second, what strategies have civilian agents sought to use in attempting to achieve civilian control and what structural factors have conditioned strategy choices? Third, how successful have Thai civilian governments been in achieving control? Finally, what might be the future for Thai civil-military relations

Agency (philosophy · Civil society · Civil–military relations · Control (management · Democracy · Economics · Management · Military relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Structure and agency · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Law · Public Administration · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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