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transformation, with sustainable liberal democratic politics. A key factor
in Thailand’s successful growth and development throughout the 1980s
and 1990s and into the early 2000s was policy stability, even while
there were many changes in government. That is, economic transformation
took place in the context of a political environment that while unstable
in terms of the tenure of specific governments, provided continuing
general policy coherence or stability, with respect to basic economic
objectives and development direction.

In recent years there seems to have been a loss of essential
policy stability. This is in part because the successful economic
development model has run its course. Thailand’s turbulent politics of
recent years may be seen as arising in part from a societal transformation
that has been shaped by years of successful rapid sustained economic
growth and diversification, for example the emergence of a significant
13
rural middle class. The transformation of the economy and society
have put increasing strains on the political system and institutions,
particularly as the pace of growth slowed and stalled, especially after
the Global Crisis of 2008.

Thailand’s necessary strategy for economic transformation –
particularly Thailand 4.0 and the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC)
program – must be implemented in a relatively slow growth, uncertain,
and turbulent global environment. It is also an environment where the
liberal democratic political model is increasing questioned in diverse
country settings, to a large extent with respect to its capacity to deliver
future sustained economic growth and progress. This leads to the fourth
proposition.

13 See for example Andrew Walker, 2012. Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in
the Modern Rural Economy. University of Wisconsin Press.

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