Political Science Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Although democratization in Thailand in the 1990s is commonly characterized as a classic case of modernization theory in action, economic globalization provides a better explanation for Thailand's democratization process. Economic growth in the country has been based on foreign capital and has created a globalized economy sensitive to the confidence of world capital markets. Moreover, the Thai middle classes cannot be characterized as having coherent political preferences, and it is arguable that the 1992 middle class protests were more about suspicions of official corruption than about democracy.

Publication Date

3-2003

Publication Title

Asian Survey

Publisher

University of California Press

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2003.43.2.253

Start Page No.

253

End Page No.

279

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