ABSTRACT
Criminalisation of moral hazard during the COVID-19 crisis: the study of Thailand under Emergency Decree, 2020–2021
The pandemic crisis has led to widespread changes in welfare policies in many countries, including Thailand. The Thai government decided to strictly implement the policy of locking down the country during the crisis and used an emergency decree to increase the executive power by reducing the power of local government and parliament to control people according to strict disease control. In addition, the government has implemented various welfare provisions, with budgets that are twice as high as the welfare budgets throughout the year. However, this budget is still too small and not enough to remedy people’s indiscriminate suffering throughout the country. The Thai government has decided to introduce residual welfare benefits targeted at the most vulnerable. The government has pursued allegations of fraud welfare claims through various channels as never before, such as the Computer Act and the Security Act. These laws reproduce the neo-colonisation of policing in Thailand by expanding the state’s authority under the crisis. The redefinition paradigm of policing during a crisis via the Global South or Orientalism approach will enable scholars to understand state–citizen relations during a crisis.
This chapter will consider four parts, respectively: (1) the development of policing politics in Thailand, (2) the characteristic of the allegations of moral hazard in the epidemic crisis, (3) the role of police and government officers under the Emergency Decree on controlling welfare accessibility, and (4) results of various allegations of welfare fraud during COVID-19 in Thailand and how this has further expanded policing powers.
