Teri Caraway's very insightful paper asks us to re-think the extent to which institutions played a significant role in the electoral victories of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party (and their subsequent incarnations). Arguing against the so-called “institutionalists,” Caraway argues that constitutional and electoral rules did not matter in generating TRT's victory, but rather had temporal and nuanced effects. First, they mattered in terms of the magnitude of TRT's 2001 electoral win but did not explain the electoral results in and of themselves. Second, institutions helped consolidate TRT's power and were crucial in enabling the party to successfully implement its programmatic platform and therefore solidify a very loyal mass base. But once a mass base became consolidated in support of TRT, institutional engineering was subsequently less effective in shaping electoral outcomes. What Caraway most crucially shows is that one has to break down the causal effect of institutions temporally and draw a distinction between their role in a founding (and “unsettled”) moment, and then as mechanisms of reproduction.
Caraway adds to the study of Thai politics not just a critique of how institutions are employed as causal factors, but more importantly, how timing matters in assessing political events. By separating a founding moment from a period of reproduction, Caraway distinguishes in a sophisticated manner when and how institutions matter.Footnote 1 By showing how a focus on temporality leads to different conclusions about institutional effects, Caraway's intervention therefore points to an analytical domain—temporality and more generally, historical analysis—that is ripe for more work within the institutionalist literature on Thai politics. In lauding Caraway for her nuanced view of when and how institutions matter, I want to argue that this nuanced approach should have been sustained throughout her analysis, and if it had been, we might have a different interpretation of the causal factors at work in the founding moment.
To what extent did financial resources trump institutions and their subsequent effect on a programmatic platform in the 2001 elections? Caraway claims that financial resources alone were sufficient for TRT's victory. Thai parties have historically won elections thanks to clientelist politics, and therefore we cannot assume that voters would believe a new party advancing programmatic policies. Promises of short-term benefits would have led them to vote for TRT. As Caraway writes: “Since programmatic appeals were an unproven commodity in Thailand's electoral political economy, both candidates in the constituency seats and voters had reason to be skeptical of their value.” Furthermore, the extent of gains at the constituency level alone would have ensured a parliamentary victory—and therefore the party-list itself, that incentivizes programmatic policies, was not crucial to TRT's triumph.
Caraway then runs through a counterfactual that in the absence of finances, TRT would not have attracted so many local candidates (and therefore also voters) to its stable, while in the absence of programmatic policies, it would have. The more complex reality is that it probably was a combination of financial resources and programmatic policies that led to TRT's attractiveness and eventual spectacular victory. Caraway is completely right to pinpoint the context of the Asian financial crisis as the structural foundation upon which TRT's resource advantage played itself out.
Yet the impact of the financial crisis was not just about the relative advantage of Thaksin's resources versus his opponents, but also about shaping the key issues that would matter in an election. Thaksin played brilliantly on the sense among a wide swath of the electorate that Thailand had been unfairly treated by the IMF and therefore by its domestic henchmen, the Democrat Party, which was at the helm of the government during the crisis and very eager to implement neoliberal reforms. Therefore, the programmatic agenda that TRT advanced, with social and economic reform at its core, was a direct response to the threats of neoliberal globalization. In a context where many firms were laying off hundreds of thousands of Thais, policies such as a universal health care or a massive loan program (1 Million Baht Village Fund) were attractive for struggling middle-class families and voters angered by neoliberalism.Footnote 2
Thus, Caraway correctly identifies the Asian financial crisis as central to the resource imbalance that led to TRT's runaway victory. But she underplays how the crisis actually helped set up TRT's reformist vision, increased its resonance among politicians considering which party to join and ultimately, affected electorate. After all, in the context of the financial crisis, it was not accidental that TRT chose as its slogan “khit mai, tham mai” (think new, act new). Clearly, this slogan effectively encapsulated the reformist platform the party advertised so successfully.
Firmly distinguishing whether financial resources or institutions and programs mattered more is quite complicated, especially since, as Caraway herself notes, TRT had both greater resources and programmatic policies. It is already a significant contribution to show that institutions mattered at different times with different magnitude. A more nuanced approach would, in fact, allow that in the context of the financial crisis, reformed institutions conjoined with reformist policies must have had a significant effect, along with the resource advantages that a tycoon like Thaksin possessed at that time. Institutions, institutional reforms, and institutional effects must then be understood and embedded within larger structural, historical, and temporal conditions.
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Teri Caraway's very insightful paper asks us to re-think the extent to which institutions played a significant role in the electoral victories of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party (and their subsequent incarnations). Arguing against the so-called “institutionalists,” Caraway argues that constitutional and electoral rules did not matter in generating TRT's victory, but rather had temporal and nuanced effects. First, they mattered in terms of the magnitude of TRT's 2001 electoral win but did not explain the electoral results in and of themselves. Second, institutions helped consolidate TRT's power and were crucial in enabling the party to successfully implement its programmatic platform and therefore solidify a very loyal mass base. But once a mass base became consolidated in support of TRT, institutional engineering was subsequently less effective in shaping electoral outcomes. What Caraway most crucially shows is that one has to break down the causal effect of institutions temporally and draw a distinction between their role in a founding (and “unsettled”) moment, and then as mechanisms of reproduction.
Caraway adds to the study of Thai politics not just a critique of how institutions are employed as causal factors, but more importantly, how timing matters in assessing political events. By separating a founding moment from a period of reproduction, Caraway distinguishes in a sophisticated manner when and how institutions matter.Footnote 1 By showing how a focus on temporality leads to different conclusions about institutional effects, Caraway's intervention therefore points to an analytical domain—temporality and more generally, historical analysis—that is ripe for more work within the institutionalist literature on Thai politics. In lauding Caraway for her nuanced view of when and how institutions matter, I want to argue that this nuanced approach should have been sustained throughout her analysis, and if it had been, we might have a different interpretation of the causal factors at work in the founding moment.
To what extent did financial resources trump institutions and their subsequent effect on a programmatic platform in the 2001 elections? Caraway claims that financial resources alone were sufficient for TRT's victory. Thai parties have historically won elections thanks to clientelist politics, and therefore we cannot assume that voters would believe a new party advancing programmatic policies. Promises of short-term benefits would have led them to vote for TRT. As Caraway writes: “Since programmatic appeals were an unproven commodity in Thailand's electoral political economy, both candidates in the constituency seats and voters had reason to be skeptical of their value.” Furthermore, the extent of gains at the constituency level alone would have ensured a parliamentary victory—and therefore the party-list itself, that incentivizes programmatic policies, was not crucial to TRT's triumph.
Caraway then runs through a counterfactual that in the absence of finances, TRT would not have attracted so many local candidates (and therefore also voters) to its stable, while in the absence of programmatic policies, it would have. The more complex reality is that it probably was a combination of financial resources and programmatic policies that led to TRT's attractiveness and eventual spectacular victory. Caraway is completely right to pinpoint the context of the Asian financial crisis as the structural foundation upon which TRT's resource advantage played itself out.
Yet the impact of the financial crisis was not just about the relative advantage of Thaksin's resources versus his opponents, but also about shaping the key issues that would matter in an election. Thaksin played brilliantly on the sense among a wide swath of the electorate that Thailand had been unfairly treated by the IMF and therefore by its domestic henchmen, the Democrat Party, which was at the helm of the government during the crisis and very eager to implement neoliberal reforms. Therefore, the programmatic agenda that TRT advanced, with social and economic reform at its core, was a direct response to the threats of neoliberal globalization. In a context where many firms were laying off hundreds of thousands of Thais, policies such as a universal health care or a massive loan program (1 Million Baht Village Fund) were attractive for struggling middle-class families and voters angered by neoliberalism.Footnote 2
Thus, Caraway correctly identifies the Asian financial crisis as central to the resource imbalance that led to TRT's runaway victory. But she underplays how the crisis actually helped set up TRT's reformist vision, increased its resonance among politicians considering which party to join and ultimately, affected electorate. After all, in the context of the financial crisis, it was not accidental that TRT chose as its slogan “khit mai, tham mai” (think new, act new). Clearly, this slogan effectively encapsulated the reformist platform the party advertised so successfully.
Firmly distinguishing whether financial resources or institutions and programs mattered more is quite complicated, especially since, as Caraway herself notes, TRT had both greater resources and programmatic policies. It is already a significant contribution to show that institutions mattered at different times with different magnitude. A more nuanced approach would, in fact, allow that in the context of the financial crisis, reformed institutions conjoined with reformist policies must have had a significant effect, along with the resource advantages that a tycoon like Thaksin possessed at that time. Institutions, institutional reforms, and institutional effects must then be understood and embedded within larger structural, historical, and temporal conditions.