Elite Settlement between Liberals and Conservatives

* photos copyright *
Photo from Government House at about 10:30 PM on Thursday November 27. Despite serious city-wide panic over coup rumors, it was business as usual at the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) encampment at Government House.

Academic Micheal Connors over at Sovereign Myth puts worth an interesting and alternative take on the class struggle framework which many have utilized to understand the conflict between PAD and the People's Power Party or former Thai Rak Thai.

Key quote:

"In place of the idea that this is a conflict between poor and rich, city and province, consider that the Thaksin regime progressively threatened an elite settlement between liberals and conservatives (in form since the 1980s) that envisaged a generational programme of regime change in a liberal political direction; a settlement that protected both the military and the palace. Class and geographical politics were certainly part of the equation in the 2006 conflict that led to the coup, but it is the subsequent conflict that has brought them to the fore."

To read the full article, click here: The Politics of Coups in Thailand 2008.