ABSTRACT
Thailand is a paradoxical study in democracy and plutocracy, or legitimacy and elite control. Notably, Thailand appears to be structurally (if broadly) divided between urbansouthern and northern-north-eastern political allegiances within the context of elite competition, institutionalised high-level corruption and a winner-takes-all political mentality. The question for Thailand is whether its main political parties (and their leaders) can reach across the current ideological, cultural and geographic divides and achieve government that is broadly accepted as being elected by a majority but representing all. If they stumble at this challenge, the country is more likely to retreat to a more restrictive constitution – its twentieth since 1932 – and a return to what might be termed a limited or constrained electoral process (see Pawakapan 2015c).
