Corruption and Democracy in Thailand
Field research on how money actually moves through Thai officialdom.
Summary
The reference has not verified this book in detail; the summary states only what the title, author and subject establish.
Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan wrote this study of corruption in Thailand, published in 1994, based on their own research into the mechanisms and the scale.
The reference has not verified the book's detailed contents. The subject as the authors approached it covers both the political corruption associated with elected governments, particularly vote buying and the recovery of election spending through office, and the bureaucratic and police corruption embedded in the administration of licences, permits and law enforcement.
Phongpaichit's related research, including her work on Thailand's illegal economy, estimated the scale of revenue from illegal activities including gambling, prostitution, arms and drugs, and traced how that revenue connects to police and political protection, which is the mechanism by which illegal enterprise and political finance are linked.
The analytical argument that runs through the authors' work on this subject is that corruption in Thailand is structural rather than a matter of individual dishonesty: the cost of contesting an election exceeds any legitimate return from office, which means that anyone entering politics must have a means of recovering the expenditure, and the available means are the allocation of contracts, the granting of licences and the protection of illegal enterprise.
The book was published in 1994, before the 1997 constitution that attempted to address these mechanisms, before Thaksin, and before the subsequent coups. The authors' later work, including the Thaksin biography and the general history of Thailand also in this reference, extends the analysis.
Key takeaways 7
- The cost of contesting a Thai election exceeds any legitimate return from office, which requires officeholders to recover the expenditure.
- Contract allocation, licence granting and protection of illegal enterprise are the available means of recovering election spending.
- Corruption in this setting is structural rather than a matter of individual dishonesty, because the incentives require it.
- Revenue from illegal gambling, prostitution and trafficking connects to political finance through police and official protection.
- Bureaucratic corruption in licensing and permits operates independently of the electoral corruption and predates it.
- Vote buying reflects the absence of policy-based political competition rather than only the venality of voters.
- The analysis predates the 1997 constitutional reforms that attempted to address these mechanisms.
Who should read it
Analysts and operators in Thailand who want the structural account of how political finance and illegal enterprise connect.
About Pasuk Phongpaichit
Emeritus professor of economics at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok; writes on Thailand's economy, politics, corruption and inequality.
The Thailand books track one economy through a credit-fuelled boom, the 1997 devaluation and the political conflict that followed, measuring the informal economy and the business-political networks instead of assuming them away. Anyone underwriting Southeast Asian exposure finds here the local mechanics linking capital, patronage and policy.
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