Organizer: Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University

Type/Location: Hybrid / DeKalb, IL

Description:

Praetorian Kingdom: A History of Military Ascendancy in Thailand, is scheduled to be published mid-year 2024 by ISEAS Publishing, Singapore. The book is a chronology of the armed forces in Thailand from its founding as a permanent standing army in 1852 and service to the absolute monarchy, its martial dominance roughly from 1932 until 1973, reasserted power after 1976 until 1988/1992, backseat role in the 1992-2006 guided democracy, and reinvigorated sway since 2006. In 2024, Thailand has experienced 14 overt and successful military coups, and, despite currently being headed by a civilian Prime Minister, continues to possess a military which could stage a coup at any time.

The relevance of this book is that it is the first work in English to focus attention on the overall history of a highly relevant Thai political actor responsible for changing multiple governments – the military. Attendees will come away learning from the talk (and book) how the military evolved to be so powerful and its relations with civilian governments as well as direct ties with other governments (such as the United States) across time.

About the Speaker:

Paul Chambers earned his PhD at Northern Illinois University in 2003 and currently serves as Lecturer and Advisor for International Affairs at the College of ASEAN Community Studies, Naresuan University, Thailand. He is also research fellow at both the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore and the German-Southeast Asian Centre for Public Policy and Good Governance. Finally, he is editor of the Journal Asian Affairs: An American Review. His research focuses upon civil-military relations, security-sector reform, and democratization in Southeast Asia.

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