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Future Forward book cover
Future Forward
The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party
2020
First Published
4.00
Average Rating
250
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Thai politics have been intensely polarized since demonstrations against the government of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra began in 2005. Conservatives aligned with the military and monarchy are pitted against critics of the establishment supporting a more open political order. In the election of 24 March 2019, this pattern was broken by the emergence of Future Forward, an upstart political party led by 40-year-old autoparts tycoon Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. Although only founded a year before, and with minimal local roots, the party won 81 seats and became the third largest party in parliament. Future Forward was a rare attempt to break the flawed mold of Thai politics. Borrowing elements from such ‘antiparties’ as Spain’s Podemos and Italy’s Five Star Movement, the party used internet technologies to promote its leaders, Thanathorn and his leadership team gaining a celebrity status. It also appealed directly to voters with a national platform, rather than relying on local efforts to mobilize voters. Since the election, the party has been dissolved and its leaders banned from politics. Thanathorn and his colleagues represented an existential threat to the Thai establishment – at least in the imaginations of the elite. Their ability to capture the zeitgeist and tap into the aspirations of digital natives and millennials feeling little loyalty to older notions of Thai identity posed an immense challenge to the powers-that-be. Despite the demise of Future Forward, a significant shift in Thai politics signaled by the party’s success seems to be in motion. This is the first book to examine the most interesting new force to emerge in Thai politics for two decades, one also exploring the wider dynamics of political leadership, party formation and voter behavior in a society where popular participation has been largely suppressed since the 2014 military coup. Based on exclusive interviews with party leaders and a wide range of Thai-language sources, it examines how Future Forward succeeded in mobilizing so much electoral support, whilst also arousing intense hostility from the conservative forces demanding its dissolution. Organized into three main themes – Leaders, Party, and Voters – this is a must-read study of Thai politics.

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Authors

Duncan McCargo
Duncan McCargo
Author · 3 books
Duncan McCargo is a professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds specializing in Thailand and Asia-related topics. He holds three degrees from the University of London: a First in English (Royal Holloway 1986); then an MA in Area Studies (Southeast Asia) (1990), and a PhD in Politics (1993) (the later two from the School of Oriental and African Studies). He has also taught at Queen's University Belfast, and at Kobe Gakuin University, Japan. In 2006-07, he was a visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and he served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Universiti Utara Malaysia in September 2011. McCargo is a Visiting Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University and also an Associate Fellow of the New-York-based Asia Society.
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