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Regime Legitimacy in Troubled Waters: to What Extent Does Inequality Influence Trust in Political Institutions in Thailand (2002-2016)?

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Regime Legitimacy in Troubled Waters: to What Extent Does Inequality Influence Trust in Political Institutions in Thailand (2002-2016)? LUND UNIVERSITY • CENTRE FOR EAST AND SOUTH-EAST ASIAN STUDIES Regime Legitimacy in Troubled Waters: To What Extent Does Inequality Influence Trust in Political Institutions in Thailand (2002-2016)? Author: Malte Reimann Supervisor: Stefan Brehm Master’s Programme in Asian Studies Spring semester 2018 Abstract: Thailand ranks not only among the world’s most unequal societies but is also a unique case regarding political instability. Along many recent legitimacy crises, contributing to the country’s instability, it turned out that Thailand mostly lacks specific support for regime institutions, as diffuse support for the national community is rather stable. This study intends to bridge a gap in the literature by connecting inequality and institutional trust, to find out if high socio-economic disparities contribute to the lack of regime legitimacy. Using ordered logistic regression models, data from the Asian Barometer surveys on trust in political institutions is related to explanatory variables such as income, evaluations of the national and household economy, regional origin and political values. The results show that inequality increasingly affects institutional trust. However, these effects are strongly connected to regional differences and additionally shaped by political values. This study conclusively provides an option for increasing regime legitimacy and mitigating Thailand’s political conflict: Reduction of socio-economic inequality. Keywords: Regime Legitimacy, Institutional Trust, Socio-Economic Inequality, Political Conflict, Thailand Acknowledgements: My gratitude goes to my supervisor Stefan Brehm and all the revisers and proof-readers for their amazing contribution. I also want to thank the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University, teachers and librarians as well as fellow students, for creating an enriching and comfortable atmosphere and supporting me on the way throughout the program. The most important, I owe my greatest gratitude to my girlfriend Laura, who strongly supported me in all regards along the way to graduation. Malte Reimann May 2018 Table of Contents: 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. BACKGROUND 3 2.1. Failed Revolution: Military, Bureaucracy and Monarchy in Thailand 3 2.2. Thailand’s Political Odyssey (1997-2018) 4 2.3. Development of Socio-Economic Inequality in Thailand 6 3. LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONTRIBUTION 9 3.1. The Monarchy and Legitimacy Crises in Thailand 9 3.2. General Regime Support in Thailand 10 3.3. Socio-economic Inequality and Politics 12 4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 13 4.1. Regime Typology and Legitimacy 13 4.2. Political Institutions 14 4.3. Political Legitimacy 15 4.4. Diffuse and Specific Support for Political Regimes 16 4.5. Institutions and Levels of Support 17 4.6. Institutions, Inequality and Contentious Politics 18 4.7. Demarcations of the Theoretical Framework 20 4.8. Ontology and Epistemology 21 5. METHODOLOGY 23 5.1. Data Collection 23 5.2. Operationalization of the Main Variables 25 5.3. Determining Explanatory Variables 27 5.4. Ordinal Logistic Regression 30 5.5. Ethical Considerations 32 6. RESULTS 33 6.1. First Survey Wave (2002) 33 6.2. Second Survey Wave (2006) 37 6.3. Third Survey Wave (2012) 40 6.4. Fourth Survey Wave (2016) 43 7. DISCUSSION 46 8. CONCLUSION 51 9. REFERENCES 53 10. APPENDIX 63 10.1. Appendix 1 64 10.2. Appendix 2 67 10.3. Appendix 3 69 10.4. Appendix 4 84 List of Figures and Tables: Figures: 1. Thailand’s Freedom House Democracy Ratings from 1973-2013 6 2. Gini Coefficients for Thailand, Different Calculations from 1960-2015 7 3. Trust in Institutions Survey Wave 1 34 4. Trust in Institutions Survey Wave 2 37 5. Trust in Institutions Survey Wave 3 40 6. Trust in Institutions Survey Wave 4 43 Tables: 1. Variables Included in the Regression Models 29 2. Results for Survey Wave 1 36 3. Results for Survey Wave 2 39 4. Results for Survey Wave 3 42 5. Results for Survey Wave 4 45 1. INTRODUCTION “It’s an old story: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The divide has never been starker. We can and must adopt policies that create opportunity for everyone, regardless of who they are or where they come from” (UNDP 2015b: Goal 10). In contrast to the Millennium Development Goals developed in 2000 (UNDP 2015a), the Sustainable Development Goals, introduced 15 years later, comprise reference particularly to inequity. The shift in United Nations policies mirrors the rising academic attention inequality attracts, induced mainly by Piketty’s account “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (Piketty 2014) on the historical evolution of increasing socio-economic disparities. This discussion is especially relevant for Southeast Asia, one of the most unequal regions globally. Although the development gap between countries has been reduced over the last decades, domestic inequality remains an often overseen but persistent problem (Mordecai 2017). Thailand sticks out in the region as one of the world’s most unequal countries. A recent study shows a continuous increase of inequality from 2001 to 2016 in Thailand, following Piketty’s main thesis of continuously widening socio-economic discrepancies, resulting in the global third place of unequal countries (CS 2018). Despite past, rapid economic growth and a per capita GDP of about 6.000 US Dollars, wealth distribution among the 70 million citizens is starkly imbalanced (WB 2018). In 2015, the Human Development Report indicated Thailand’s society to be the most unequal in East Asia (UNDP 2016: 5). Thailand is not only one of the most unequal societies globally, but also one of the most politically turbulent. With 13 successful coups and several unsuccessful ones within 85 years, Thailand’s political system is severely unstable (Kasian 2016: 231). In academic and public discussions, the country’s political instability is often related to a lack of legitimacy. Since a discourse on inequality has influenced Thailand’s recent contentious politics more and more (see Wichit 2018; Rhoden 2013), this thesis intends to shed light on the important and understudied relation between socio-economic disparities and political legitimacy in Thailand. By quantitatively evaluating the four datasets of the Asian Barometer surveys of 2002, 2006, 2012 and 2016, this thesis intends to clarify the link between legitimacy and inequality. The dependent variable chosen here is trust in political institutions. A political institution refers for instance to the government and parliament, representing the political regime. They are used in 1 this study since they offer the possibility for comparisons over time, due to their more permanent character. The hypothesized relation between socio-economic inequality and trust in institutions is in the forefront of this case study. Investigating four different survey waves allows for longitudinal analysis of eventual changes in the strength of the proposed effects. Furthermore, the longitudinal character enables an evaluation of the suggested relation against the backdrop of oscillations between authoritarian and rather democratic periods. Conclusively, this study intends to illuminate the relation between socio-economic inequality and trust in political institutions, considering possible time trends and differences between political regimes, reflected in the following research questions: Main research question: • To what extent does economic inequality influence trust in political institutions in Thailand (2002-2016)? Sub-questions: • How does the evaluation of political institutions and the explanatory strength of independent variables change over the four survey waves? Is a time trend recognizable? • Two survey waves were conducted under military juntas, and two survey waves were conducted under democratically elected governments. Do the evaluations of political institutions differ according to regime type? • What other explanatory variables influence the support for political institutions? To be able to investigate this relation, the thesis is structured as follows: First, a general overview of Thailand’s political system introduces background information required for a better comprehension and contextualization of the issue researched. This is followed by a review of the literature specifically focusing on regime legitimacy, but also the connection between socio-economic inequality and politics, highlighting this thesis’ contribution to the academic discussion. Then, the theoretical framework narrows down the focus on political institutions and investigates the role economic discrepancies can play during political change. Next, the methodology chapter discusses the data collection and selection, and the model construction, using an ordered logistic regression analysis. The last two chapters present the results, including a discussion and contextualization of the findings in consideration of theories, background information and literature review. Finally, the conclusion disseminates the findings of this thesis in a more concise way. 2 2. BACKGROUND Before evaluating existing literature on the thesis topic and introducing its theoretical framework, it is necessary to look at the broader issue and its historical context. Since Thailand’s past political development is not as straight forward as compared to other countries in the region, with its large number of military coups and complex power structures, it is worth shortly introducing historical political developments in Thailand. Then, the timeframe for the analysis of this work is described regarding its turbulent political evolution.
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