Thaksin Regime And The Red Shirt Movement

Through analyzing the economic policies of Thaksin regime and the conservative camp, this paper hold the view that Thaksin regime’s economic policies was helpful to the development plight of Thailand peasants in the new period and the conservative camp was not helpful to it, and that’s why The Red Shirt movement supported Thaksin regime and against the conservative camp. In front of the economic globalization, Thaksin regime selected the “double track system” which hoped to develop economy through expanding export and domestic demand. In this respect, Thaksin regime had implemented a series of “grassroots policies”. The grassroots policies had many far-reaching effects, on the one hand Thailand economy had maintained a sustained and rapid development; on the other hand, the “grassroots policies” was helpful to the solutions of Thailand peasants’ development plight. For a long time, the government of Thailand implemented the development strategy of urban first and rural second. Thailand peasants had suffered the development dilemma, namely, poverty gap and poor model of agricultural development. Through implementing a series of grassroots policies, Thailand peasants gained more money,and the poverty gap had been narrowed, and the poor model of agricultural development had been upgraded step by step in the same time. So, Thaksin regime was helpful to the solution of peasant’s development plight. Therefore, Thailand peasants joined the Red Shirt movement to support Thaksin when Thaksin regime was overthrow. Facing economic globalization, the conservative camp selected the“sufficiency economy” road. “Sufficiency economy” consisted of two respects, one was constructing the system of autarky, and the other was “proper development”. For this reason, the conservative camp reduced the grassroots policies especially the productive support policies. “Sufficiency economy” was not helpful to the solution of peasant’s development plight and hurt their interests. Therefore, Thailand peasants hoped that Thaksin or his successor could be in power when the conservative camp was in office. So Thailand peasants joined the Red Shirt movement after theconservative camp was in power.