Dynastic Democracy

Download or read book Dynastic Democracy written by Yoshinori Nishizaki and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2022-09-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political history of Thailand since the overthrow of absolute monarchy in 1932 has conventionally been interpreted as a long series of popular struggles for representative democracy and against military authoritarian rule. Yoshinori Nishizaki argues that this history can be better understood as one of struggles by elite political families for and against "dynastic democracy". Drawing extensively on Thai-language primary sources, including assets documents and cremation volumes for deceased politicians and their kin, Nishizaki traces the intricate blood and marriage connections among Thailand's political families. Dynastic Democracy fleshes out a widely acknowledged yet heretofore empirically unsubstantiated facet of Thai political history--that in Thai politics, family matters.