Emerging Ideology of Commercial State in Thailand

Thailand represents now a country where an emerging government-initiated ideology of “commercial nation” may be clearly identified. The new Constitution of 2017 called for creating a mid-term national strategy of the country’s development. However, this charter of Constitution is poorly worked out and dim for understanding. Therefore, it allows multitude of interpretations. It was introduced under the patronage of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) junta that came to power in Thailand’s capital in 2014. As a result of the call, in October 2018, the NCPO Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha adopted the twenty-year Thailand’s National Strategy.

Despite there are ostentatious paragraphs about a “vision for Thailand in 2037” that includes security, prosperity, and sustainability, the practicable accent is made on transforming the country to a “commercial nation.” The National Strategy reads in this context, “a country that has fully developed by means of development according to the philosophy of sufficiency economy.” In fact, the National Strategy has all features of ideology. It does not deal with Thai provinces and is intended to operate on the national level. But it is partially formed to overcome provincial separatism that has been the longstanding problem of Thailand’s stability. The problem of separatism results from the absence of powerful actors in Bangkok that would understand the real needs of Thai provinces. In spite of the National Strategy’s ubiquitous use of resounding and fashionable political terms of our days (security, competitiveness, human resources, opportunities, social equality, environmentally-friendly growth, quality of life, and the “rebalancing” and development of state administration), its highly ideologised nature prevents from its being an instrument of Thailand’s provincial development. The National Strategy does not make any efforts to address the problems of provincial population. Instead, it offers a new way of uniting people around one state-centred idea. However, it is unclear if this way will lead to the actual uniting the Thai provinces with Bangkok.

The National Strategy comprises articles about so-called “creative cities.” These new cities are deemed to be the economy’s primary drivers. They must have specialised roles in promoting agricultural, industrial, and service clusters and ecosystems for innovation in which regional universities play significant roles. Located in important provinces, these cities will have both regional functions and linkages with other cities and with Thailand’s neighbours.

The authors of the National Strategy admit that there will be self-reliant and self-administered local communities in Thai provinces whose vectors of development will be aimed at the “creative cities.” These communities are to be core elements of sustaining “community democracy,” an indispensable component of the “entrepreneurial society” ideology. However, the concept of a local democratic community has, as a basis for understanding provincial Thailand, long been an absurdity, since the great majority of the Thai population tends to authoritarianism as a governance model.

No doubt, the ideology of “commercial nation” (“entrepreneurial society”) is an excellent example of novel political technologies of social administration in developing countries. The ideology is constructed to gather people around one new idea and it is meant to bring around hinterlands’ unification with the state centre. But as a practical vehicle, this ideology is hardly useful, as too vague and uncertain definitions have been given and too unclear ways of control / administration have been proposed thus far.