ABSTRACT
Who were the Yellow Shirts? Were the Yellow Shirts who helped topple Thaksin Shinawatra the same as the ones that contributed to Yingluck’s downfall? How were they mobilised and why? What did the Yellow Shirts want, and how have they mattered to contemporary Thai politics? The chapter charts the origin of the Yellow Shirt movement centred on the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and its evolution to the “whistle rebels” – the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) – between early 2000s and 2014. These broad conservative forces were largely urban middle class with strong elements of royalism, nationalism, Buddhism and anti-majoritarianism. When focusing on the leadership structure, movement organisation and mobilisation strategies of the PAD and the PDRC, the author argues that these broad opposition movements were best understood as composing independent factions rather than like-minded coalition partners. With differing backgrounds, motives and aims, each faction united only temporarily in order to oust the incumbent but soon disintegrated as faction leaders squabbled for power in the post-coup environment. Looking forward, as opposition coalitions like the PAD and the PDRC would come and go and the leadership was recycled, the conservative grassroots support would remain as their grievances were not met.
