Under and beyond the Law: Monarchy, Violence, and History in Thailand*

• DOI: 10.1177/00323292211033073
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00323292211033073

Politics & Society

2021, Vol. 49(3) 311 –336

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00323292211033073

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Article

Under and beyond the Law:

Monarchy, Violence, and

History in Thailand*

Tyrell Haberkorn

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Abstract

Since the end of the absolute monarchy in Thailand on June 24, 1932, the rulers and

the ruled have been locked into struggle, often violent, over what form the polity

and the people’s participation in it should take. This essay examines this struggle,

the imagination of justice, and the inability to consolidate democracy, or even a

stable government, through the lens of the monarchy, which has remained beyond

accountability. Violence committed to preserve the monarchy forecloses democracy

and fosters a form of what can be called modern absolutist monarchy, when some

lives are visibly placed beyond the law’s protection from violence and others are

made dispensable by being made subject to repressive enforcement of the law. The

emergence in 2020 of a daring challenge to the position of the monarchy beyond the

law refracts both the dangers it poses to democracy and the urgency of imagining a

new Thai polity.

Keywords

Thailand, monarchy, lèse majesté, National Council for Peace and Order, violence,

law

Corresponding Author:

Tyrell Haberkorn, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Wisconsin, 12th Floor,

Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Email: tyrell.haberkorn@wisc.edu

*This is one of four articles and an introduction that form a special issue of Politics & Society titled

“Right-Wing Activism in Asia: Cold War Legacies, Geopolitics, and Democratic Erosion.” The four

articles developed from the earlier versions presented at a symposium titled “Rise of Illiberal Politics in

Asia” organized by Yoonkyung Lee, director of the Centre for the Study of Korea at the University of

Toronto, on November 15, 2019. The authors would like to thank Professors Takashi Fujitani, Sida Liu,

Andre Schmid, and Jack Veugelers, who participated in the symposium as discussants and offered critical

comments.

1033073PASXXX10.1177/00323292211033073Politics & SocietyHaberkorn

research-article2021

312 Politics & Society 49(3)

In late December 2018, the bodies of Chatcharn Buppawan and Kraidej Luelert were

found on the Thai side of the Mekong River that separates Thailand and Laos. They

had been “disemboweled and stuffed with concrete posts, their legs broken and their

hands handcuffed, as well as tied with rope at the neck, waist and knees and wrapped

in several thick bags.”1 The investigation into their deaths is permanently stalled, and

there is little hope that the murderers will be identified, let alone arrested and prose-

cuted. At first glance, the murder of Chatcharn and Kraidej may appear as just another

unsolved crime.2

But the brutality of their deaths suggests that Chatcharn and Kraidej were not ordi-

nary murder victims and this is not just another unsolved murder. They were exiles

who fled Thailand for Laos in the aftermath of the May 22, 2014, coup by the National

Council for Peace and Order out of well-founded concern that their questioning of the

monarchy might lead to their arrest under Article 112, Thailand’s draconian lèse

majesté law. Within the relative freedom of exile, they continued their dissent through

popular YouTube and other internet radio programs. Exile kept them safe from arrest

and prosecution but ultimately did not protect their lives: they are two among a total

of nine republican exiles murdered or disappeared since the coup.

Their deaths invite a politically unsettling and intellectually challenging question

that brings the intersection of the Thai state, the role of the monarchy, and the horizon

of politics for citizens into unavoidable relief. On the one hand, their murders may

seem to be an extreme part of the crackdown on dissidents that characterized the

regime of the National Council for Peace and Order, a regime that spanned five years

until a new cabinet was sworn in on July 16, 2019, following elections in March. On

the other hand, given that most of those critical of the monarchy faced prosecution, not

brutal murder, it would be a mistake to identify this as another, albeit extreme, part of

the National Council’s constriction of freedom of expression. Why not extradite dis-

sidents such as Chatcharn and Kraidej, or even rendition them across borders, to face

trial in Thailand?

Close to ninety years after the transformation of absolute to constitutional monar-

chy on June 24, 1932, how did republicanism, which here extends not only to calls for

the abolition of the monarchy but to any critical perspective on the institution of the

monarchy, become so dangerous to those who wield power in Thailand that their

response to it became murder beyond borders? The difficulty of answering this ques-

tion, which mirrors the impossibility of naming the perpetrators, underscores the

urgency of attempting to do so. In mid-2020, following the disappearance of the ninth

activist, Wanchalearm Satsaksit, outside his apartment in Phnom Penh, youth activists

launched what has become a sweeping challenge to the unrestrained and unnamed

power of the monarchy and therefore the most radical and dangerous movement for

democracy since 1932. In confronting the monarchy over its outsize power in the pol-

ity, including the violence visited upon dissident exiles, youth activists have inter-

twined their own lives with the polity and brought both to a critical moment.

Transformation into a democracy with the rule of law, freedom of speech, and a mon-

archy restrained under a constitution came within reach. Initially, the critical rhetoric

and increasing frequency and size of the protests were tolerated by the Thai