Sick tiger: social conflict, state-business relations and exclusive growth in Thailand/
Veerayooth Kanchoochat, Trin Aiyara and Bank Ngamarunchot
- 2021
This article proposes a modified social conflict approach to state-business relations that incorporates into the analysis the role of intra-elite contestation, marginalised groups, and different kinds of leading economic actor, with a case study of Thailand. It argues that, from 1980 to 1997, Thailand's economic development occurred within the context of multifaceted conflicts and power fragmentation. Banking oligopolies played a leading role in resource allocation that took Thailand to a path of high growth, high inequality and low technological capabilities. Social conflict in the post-1997 era has shifted towards power consolidation, centring on the tussle between the traditional elite and elected politicians. Thaksin's growth regime (2001-2006) was state-led in character, with profound populist-redistributive impacts. Two military coups in 2006 and 2014 did not change this consolidated structure. The junta replaced Thaksin at the top of the pecking order and rearranged the inner-outer circles of its own clientelistic networks. This evolution of social conflict has rendered Thailand's economic development increasingly opposing to the notion of inclusive growth.