Southern Thailand: from conflict to negotiations?

Summary: In this Analysis, University of Leeds professor Duncan McCargo argues that the recent Malaysian-backed Southern Thai peace initiative has now run into some serious problems. He argues that despite its various shortcomings the initiative is still worthy of support, since it has gained far more traction that any previous attempts to address the decade-long insurgency. Thailand needs to maintain focus on the southern conflict despite its current preoccupation with a national-level political crisis that threatens to topple the government of Yingluck Shinawatra. Key findings The conflict in Southern Thailand is one of Asia’s most serious insurgencies, with over 6,000 dead over the last 10 years. The Malaysian government sponsored negotiations represents the best hope for reaching a political settlement and bringing peace to the region. However, both sides need to show greater commitment to the negotiations, introducing new structures and procedures

Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s

Book review of Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s, by Kimberly Monteyne (2013)

Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s

Book review of Hip Hop on Film: Performance Culture, Urban Space, and Genre Transformation in the 1980s, by Kimberly Monteyne (2013)

New Media, New Partisanship: Divided Virtual Politics In and Beyond Thailand

Since the military coup of September 19, 2006, Thailand has been characterized by deeply divided politics. This article examines the rise of partisan television channels closely associated with mass protest movements: ASTV, Asia Update, and Blue Sky. Leading figures of each protest movement became media celebrities in their own right: Thai politics became a form of reality TV, while popular entertainment became a mode of politics. As time went on, mediatized populism fueled use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to promote partisan political stances. Each movement invoked its own competing notion of “the people,” offering highly selective and self-serving definitions of what constituted the public sphere and who was entitled to inhabit and, indeed, occupy this space. Partisan electronic media and new media have empowered citizens and deepened popular political engagement. But they have also stoked profound social division and discord, sometimes spilling over into violence. New media have helped generate dangerous forms of populism that undermine social cohesion and that demonize political adversaries

Thailand in 2016: Fade to Gray

Events in Thailand during 2016 were overshadowed by the death of long-reigning King Bhumibol Adulyadej on October 13, and the entire nation’s mourning. Despite the popular approval of a new constitution in August 2016, Thailand’s military regime showed no sign of relinquishing power during this time of considerable national anxiety

Thailand in 2016: Fade to Gray

Events in Thailand during 2016 were overshadowed by the death of long-reigning King Bhumibol Adulyadej on October 13, and the entire nation’s mourning. Despite the popular approval of a new constitution in August 2016, Thailand’s military regime showed no sign of relinquishing power during this time of considerable national anxiety

Prototype and innovation : case studies in the evolution of fixed-use development

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988, and Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1988.Includes bibliographical references.by Paul David Sehnert, Baird McCargo Standish.M.S

Branding Dissent: Nitirat, Thailand’s Enlightened Jurists

This article examines the political role of a group of academic lawyers based at Thammasat University who have been seeking to reform various aspects of the Thai legal and judicial system. The seven-member group started out by criticising the illegality of the 2006 coup. After the 2010 crackdown against redshirt protestors, the group named itself Nitirat and started to hold seminars, draft legal proposals, and campaign to amend various laws. Nitirat has repeatedly challenged the legal and constitutional underpinnings of three key elements of the Thai state: the judiciary, the military, and the monarchy. In doing so, the group has gained a mass following, drawn mainly from those sympathetic to the “redshirt” movement which broadly supports former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Informally led by scholar Worajet Pakeerat, Nitirat has created a popular branding which is reflected in huge audiences for public events, and the sales of souvenirs. The article aims to answer the following questions: How does Nitirat combine the roles of legal academic and political activist? How does it differ from the traditional mode of Thai public intellectuals? How significant is the Nitirat phenomenon

Against Wishful Scholarship: The Importance of Engel

David Engel\u27s Article on global consciousness\u27 crystallizes a set of arguments he recently made in a number of publications, most notably in his coauthored book Tort, Custom, and Karma.2 To me, the main point of his argument is by no means limited to questions of law or globalism. Rather, he argues against the dominant mode of writing among scholars across a wide range of social science and related disciplines-a mode of writing that might best be termed wishful scholarship. In wishful scholarship, the starting point of the author is the world as she or he wishes to see it, or wishes to see it become