Thailand's Policy Discourses during the Thaksin and Prayuth Governments, as Perceived by Thai Academics
Keywords:
Thailand, populism discourse, civil society as policy discourseAbstract
This study aims to compare and contrast the policy discourses of Thailand's Thaksin and Prayuth regimes in terms of perceptions, social impacts, and preferences. The rationale for the study is that Thaksin's populism and Prayuth's civil society policies have intriguing policy shifts, continuity, and a distinctive discourse policy personality. Researchers could use poststructuralist discourse theory and critical policy analysis as a post-positivist approach to compare and study the diverse discourse set. Thirty academics from six Thai universities were interviewed for this project, and their utterances were used to analyze and interpret the discursive power of the two policy approaches. Another rationale that researchers about populist policy in developing countries in the past, especially Baykan, Gürsoy and Ostiguy (2021), said that the populist change in Thailand, Venezuela, and Turkey didn't work. Still, the populist program might have survived due to its much more dominant power. This addition tries to back that up. How did this happen, and what caused it? The study shows that Prayuth's policies on civil society could not fully replace the popular programs of the Thaksin government. Civil society was one of the most critical factors in replacement failure. The first only appears in the name; it doesn't appear in their implementation. The second reason is that the Prayuth government didn't think that appealing to the people would work as a populist strategy. Surprisingly, they didn't make poor people in rural areas the goal of their policies or try to change how ordinary people asked to give themselves power in policies.
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