New Books in Southeast Asian Studies Duncan McCargo and Anyarat Chattharakul, "Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party" (NIAS Press, 2020)
Thailand has been in a deep political crisis since the royalist-military coup against the Thaksin government in 2006. A second coup, in 2014, ushered in a hard-line military dictatorship. The passing of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2016 and accession to the throne of his son and heir, King Vajiralongkorn, has further transformed Thailand’s political landscape. When the military junta organized new elections in 2019, most Thais expected the military to engineer the military-backed party into government. What no-one expected was the remarkable electoral success of a new, liberal, progressive political party, Future Forward. But within two years the Constitutional Court had dissolved the party and banned its leadership from politics for ten years. Duncan McCargo and Anyarat Chattharakul have analysed the stunning rise and fall of this party in their co-authored book, Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party (NIAS Press, 2020).
Patrick Jory teaches Southeast Asian History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland. He can be reached at: p.jory@uq.edu.au.
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