Shrinking Political Power of the Thai Military in the 1990s

Abstract

The 1990s witnessed a dramatic decrease in the political power of the Thai military, which had been the most powerful force in Thai politics since the 1932 revolution. This essay considers the reasons for this shrinking of political power, and argues that the military owed its earlier political power to its potential to stage a successful coup. The long history of political intervention by the military shows that a successful coup needed the strong leadership of the army chief and the solidarity of army top brass to defeat or at least neutralize the various forces opposing the coup, and that such leadership and solidarity could be attained only through an annual reshuffle of army officers. Examination of the annual reshuffle in the last twenty years reveals that the May 1992 incident damaged the military more seriously than any other factors (the end of the Cold War, global and domestic democratization tides, and so on). Since 1992 special attention has been paid to avoid concentration of important posts into the hands of any particular class of the military academy. Through this policy, it became difficult for an army chief to consolidate his power sufficiently to stage a coup. This has resulted in the decrease in military power in politics, because the government can now reject demands from the armed forces.