Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age weiser center for emerging democracies Series Editor Dan Slater is Professor of Political Science, Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of Emerging Democracies, and Director of the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED) at the University of Michigan. [email protected] The Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED) Series publishes cutting-edge re- search in the pivotal field of authoritarianism and democratization studies. We live in a his- torical moment when democracies seem increasingly fragile and authoritarian regimes seem stubbornly resilient across the globe, and these topics continue to be a central part of re- search in the social sciences. The WCED Series strives to collect a balance of titles on emerg- ing democracies and enduring dictatorships, as one cannot understand the conditions under which democracies live and thrive without comprehending how they die and remain unborn. The WCED Series is interested in the full range of research being conducted on authoritarian- ism and democratization, primarily in political science but at times from history, sociology, and anthropology as well. The series encompasses a global geographic reach. We invite works that are primarily qualitative as well as quantitative in approach and are interested in edited volumes as well as solo-authored manuscripts. The series highlights the leading role of the University of Michigan Press, Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, and International Institute as premier sites for the research and produc- tion of knowledge on the conditions that make democracies emerge and dictatorships endure. Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age: The Yellow Shirts in Thailand Aim Sinpeng Normalizing Corruption: Failures of Accountability in Ukraine Erik S. Herron Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability: Duration, Financial Control, and Institutions Victor C. Shih, Editor Electoral Reform and the Fate of New Democracies: Lessons from the Indonesian Case Sarah Shair-Rosenfield Campaigns and Voters in Developing Democracies: Argentina in Comparative Perspective Noam Lupu, Virginia Oliveros, and Luis Schiumerini, Editors OPPOSING DEMOCRACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE The Yellow Shirts in Thailand Aim Sinpeng University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © 2021 by Aim Sinpeng All rights reserved For questions or permissions, please contact [email protected] Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid- free paper First published March 2021 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication data has been applied for. ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 13235- 5 (Hardcover : alk paper) ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 03848- 0 (Paper : alk paper) ISBN: 978- 0- 472- 12856- 3 (ebook) To Marc Contents List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Preface xiii PART I ONE Introduction 3 TWO Opposing Democracy 22 THREE Crises and Coups 49 FOUR The Origins of the Yellow Shirts 79 FIVE Democratic Breakdown 115 PART II SIX Social Media and the New Antidemocrats 139 SEVEN Crowdsourcing Dictatorship 170 EIGHT Conclusion 192 Notes 207 Bibliography 223 Index 245 Digital materials related to this title can be found on the Fulcrum platform via the following citable URL: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11666233 Figures Figure 1.1 Antidemocratic mobilization and coup success 9 Figure 2.1. Thailand’s GDP growth, 1990– 2017 (annual %) 35 Figure 2.2. Opposition alliance formation 44 Figure 4.1. Professions of candidates in national elections (1995– 2005) 83 Figure 4.2. Forbes’ Thailand’s richest in politics (2005) 97 Figure 4.3. Protest events as reported in 14 newspapers (2001– 2006) 110 Figure 6.1. Interaction rate of Suthep and Yingluck’s Facebook pages 158 Figure 6.2. Political pages/groups and their number of likes on Facebook (2015) 161 Figure 6.3. Current residence, by region, of PDRC and UDD protesters (street) and Suthep and Yingluck supporters (online) 163 Figure 6.4. Network visualization of commenters on Suthep’s and Yingluck’s Facebook pages 164 Figure 7.1. Results of topic probability by page during one year preceding the 2014 coup (May 22, 2013 to May 22, 2014) 177 Figure 7.2. Results of topic probabilities by page during Prayuth Chan O- Cha government (May 23, 2014 to May 23, 2017) 182 Figure 7.3. Co- commenting across five networks 185 Tables Table 1.1. Typology of opposition movement in democracies 7 Table 2.1. Incidents of democratic collapse by coup d’état, 2000– 2015 24 Table 2.2. Indicators for antidemocratic mobilization 27 Table 3.1. Causes and consequences of successful coups in Thailand 58 Table 3.2. Reformist approaches to three accountability ideologies and the subsequent reforms enacted in the 1997 constitution 70 Table 4.1. Professions of candidates in national elections (1995– 2005) 85 Table 4.2. Thaksin’s key propoor policies 88 Table 4.3. Selected corruption allegations during Thaksin administration 91 Table 4.4. Seat share of Thai Rak Thai vs. opposition parties (2002– 2006) 92 Table 4.5. Civil society organizations that led major protests (2001– 2005) 100 Table 4.6. Selected PAD networks by sector 103 Table 5.1. Poll data on the coup and coup government (2006) 127 Table 5.2. A survey of PAD attitudes 129 Table 6.1. Selected media partisanship (2006– 2015) 151 xii Tables Table 6.2. Timeline of PDRC key protests and events 155 Table 7.1. Key Facebook page statistics (post- coup) 173 Table 7.2. Ten most frequently used words, May 23, 2014 to May 23, 2017 175 Table 7.3. Top key words per topic, topic probabilities, and sentiment (precoup) 179 Table 7.4. Top key words per topic, topic probabilities, and sentiment (postcoup) 180 Table 7.5. PAD/PDRC key figures across political parties in the 2019 election 188 Table 8.1. Classification of cases by regime and type of opposition movement 202 Preface It was around 9 p.m. in the evening of September 19, 2006. Like many Thais, my Mom and I were watching an evening soap opera on TV. Sud- denly the TV show was interrupted. A group of military generals appeared. They sat calmly with portraits of the king and queen behind them. For a moment I thought it was a déjà vu. I’d seen this “image” before . when I was young. The generals announced that they had taken over from the government and that everything was going to be alright. But I knew this would not be alright. The story of Thailand is personal to me. Not simply because it is my birth country, but because my life has been directly affected by its demo- cratic collapses. In 1991, at the age of nine, I experienced firsthand a col- lapse of democracy when a group of military generals dislodged a demo- cratically elected government. I remember the vivid scenes I witnessed as a child, of army tanks rolling down the streets of Bangkok, and the hundreds of armed soldiers occupying key areas of the city. My father was a high- ranking army officer at the time, and the simple thought that “men in uni- form” dressed just like him were responsible for such chaos and the killing that ensued was entirely confusing to me. My siblings and I grew up in a military household. We were thankful to the institution that had provided my father a good career that allowed us to have a good life. Were these men in uniform the very same that did those evil things? As I grew up and lived through several coups d’état, I became even more baffled and haunted by this question. It often perplexes me how a country that had become more prosperous over the decades could subsequently have been drawn into a xiv Preface descending spiral of sometimes weak, sometimes overbearing, civilian gov- ernments that alternated with periods of authoritarian rule. Just a year prior to the coup of 2006, I was working at the Government House of Thailand during the prime ministership of Thaksin Shinawa- tra. The antigovernment protests were becoming frequent and serious. I remember the many occasions that I was unable to reach my workplace via the main entrance since it was blocked by the protesters. One day, as I squeezed myself through the back entrance along the canal, trying to make an exit, it occurred to me that I had no idea why they were protesting. Maybe I should listen in. And so I did. That was the day my interest was sparked in what would later become the “Yellow Shirts.” The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD)—more locally known as the “Yellow Shirts”—is one of the most contentious and sustained political movements in contemporary Thai history. Its title notwithstanding, this antidemocratic movement centers around a powerful monarchy and army, a distinct conception of “democratic politics,” and a weakly institutional- ized party system. This study analyzes the relationships among these three components and situates them in the overall development of the modern Thai polity. It argues that blockage in formal and informal democratic institutions drove the PAD movement to appeal to nondemocratic institu- tions, which contributed to the collapse of Thailand’s democracy in 2006. By exploring the forces and conditions that promoted this antidemocratic movement, and by showing how its emergence and decline has shaped Thailand’s experience with democracy, the study seeks more generally to elucidate factors that undermine democratic political regimes. The PAD eventually evolved into another political movement—the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC). The PDRC was even more antidemocratic than the PAD and it was a truly digitally networked movement. Some of the PDRC leaders became social media influencers with millions of followers online.