Download or read book Thailand s Buddhist Kingship in the 20th and 21st Centuries written by Marie-Sybille de Vienne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on two decades of fieldwork, including over a hundred interviews with various political and economic actors at different social levels, as well as documentary and media analysis, this volume presents an account of the Buddhist monarchy in Thailand, offering a sociology of elites, an analysis of the economic influence of the Crown and an examination of the magic and ritual dimension of kingship. An exploration of the role and status of the Palace over the last century, whether as a guarantor of democracy, a symbol of stability, a source of power or an object of popular discontent, Thailand’s Buddhist Kingship in the 20th and 21st Centuries will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in material religion, politics and Southeast Asian studies.
Download or read book Thailand s Buddhist Kingship in the 20th and 21st Centuries written by Marie-Sybille (National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations de Vienne, France) and published by Studies in Material Religion and Spirituality. This book was released on 2022-03-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive fieldwork, together with documentary and media analysis, this volume presents an account of the Buddhist monarchy in Thailand over the last century, offering a sociology of elites, an analysis of the economic influence of the Crown and an examination of the magic and ritual dimension of kingship.
Download or read book Thailand written by Charles F Keyes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thailand is exceptional among modern states in Asia in that it has built and retained a national culture around a traditional monarchical institution. Moreover, this culture has also been based on a dominant religious tradition, that of Theravada Buddhism. The process of creating the modern nation-state of Thailand out of the traditional Buddhist kingdom of Siam began in the nineteenth century when the rulers of Siam, confronted with increasing pressure from the colonial powers of Britain and France, were able to preserve their country's independence by instituting revolutionary changes that established the authority of a centralized bureaucracy throughout the country. The new state asserted its authority not only over Siamese who lived in the core area of the old kingdom but also over large numbers of Lao, Yuan or Northern Thai, Khmer, Malays, tribal peoples, and other groups, all of which had previously enjoyed relative autonomy, and over the sizable immigrant Chinese population, which was assuming an increasingly significant role in the economy. Because the rulers of the Siamese state strove to incorporate these diverse peoples into a Thai national community, how this community should be defined and what type of state structure should be linked with it have been dominant questions in modern Thai history. Significant tensions have arisen from the efforts by members of the Thai elite to make the monarchical traditions of the Bangkok dynasty, Buddhism, and the central Thai language basic to Thai national culture. Other tensions have arisen as monarchy, military, bureaucracy, the Buddhist sangha, business interests, and elected political representatives assert or maintain an authoritative position in the state structure. This book examines these tensions with reference to the major changes that have taken place in Thai society, economy, polity, and culture in the twentieth century, especially since World War II.
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Political Norms in Southeast Asia written by Gabriel Facal and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Thailand written by Pavin Chachavalpongpun and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Thailand is a timely survey and assessment of the state of contemporary Thailand. While Thailand has changed much in the past decades, this handbook proposes that many of its problems have remained intact or even persistent, particularly problems related to domestic politics. It underlines emerging issues at this critical juncture in the kingdom and focuses on the history, politics, economy, society, culture, religion and international relations of the country. A multidisciplinary approach, with chapters written by experts on Thailand, this handbook is divided into the following sections. History Political and economic landscape Social development International relations Designed for academics, students, libraries, policymakers and general readers in the field of Asian studies, political science, economics and sociology, this invaluable reference work provides an up-to-date account of Thailand and initiates new discussion for future research activities.
Download or read book Buddhism and Politics in Thailand written by Arnaud Dubus and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Law and Kingship in Thailand During the Reign of King Chulalongkorn written by David Engel and published by U OF M CENTER FOR SOUTH EAST ASIAN STUDI. This book was released on 1975-01-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essay originated in an attempt to bring together the study of law and Thai history in a description of the transformation of Thailand during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as seen from a legal point of view. The resulting work is based for the most part upon those royal enactments from 1873 to 1910 which seemed most crucially to affect the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of the king and the rights of private citizens. [ix]
Download or read book Thai Legal History written by Andrew Harding and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to provide a broad coverage of Thai legal history in the English language.
Download or read book Exploring Religious Diversity and Covenantal Pluralism in Asia written by Dennis R. Hoover and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-26 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the growing diversity of religions and worldviews across East & Southeast Asia, and the factors affecting prospects for 'covenantal pluralism' in these regions. According to the Pew Religious Diversity Index, half of the world’s most religiously diverse countries are in Asia. The presence of deep religious/worldview difference is often seen as a potential threat to socio-political cohesion or even as a source of violent conflict. Yet in Asia (as elsewhere) the degree of this diversity is not consistently associated with socio-political problems. Indeed, while religious difference is implicated in some social challenges, there are also many instances of respectful multi-faith engagement, practical collaboration, and peaceful debate. Whether or not religious/worldview difference is part of a positive pluralism depends on a complex array of legal and cultural conditions. This book explores these dynamics and contingencies in Asia, structuring the inquiry according to the theory of 'covenantal pluralism'. Covenantal pluralist theory calls for (a) a constitutional order characterized by freedom of religion/conscience and equality of rights and responsibilities, combined with (b) a culture of practical religious literacy and virtues of mutual respect and protection. Volume I offers a pioneering exploration of the prospects for this robust and non-relativistic type of pluralism in East & Southeast Asia. (Volume II examines South & Central Asia.) The chapters in these volumes originally appeared as research articles in a series on covenantal pluralism published by The Review of Faith & International Affairs.
Download or read book A History of Ayutthaya written by Chris Baker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-11 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full history of a great commercial and political center that rose in Asia over almost five centuries.
Download or read book The Buddha on Mecca s Verandah written by Irving Chan Johnson and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddha on Mecca's Verandah examines the many ways in which people living along an international border negotiate their ethnic, cultural, and political identities. This ethnography of a small community of Thai Buddhists in the Malaysian state of Kelantan draws on rich, original vignettes to show how issues such as territoriality, identity, and power frame the experiences of borderland residents. Although the Thai represent less than 10 percent of the Kelantan population, they are vocal about their identity as non-Muslim, non-Malay citizens. They have built some of the world's largest Buddhist statues in their tiny villages, in a state that has traditionally been a seat of Islamic governance. At the same time, the Thai grapple with feelings of social and political powerlessness, being neither Thai citizens nor Muslim Malaysians. This thoughtful study offers new perspectives and challenges the classical definition of boundaries and borders as spaces that enforce separation and distance. With insights applicable to comparative border and frontier studies around the world, The Buddha on Mecca's Verandah will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to specialists in Asian and Southeast Asian studies, cultural geography, religious and ethnic studies, globalization, and cosmopolitanism.
Download or read book Nation Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka written by Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nation, Constitutionalism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka offers a new perspective on contemporary debates about Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka. In this book de Silva Wijeyeratne argues forcefully that ‘Sinhalese Buddhism’ in the period prior to its engagement with the British colonial State signified a relatively unbounded (although at times boundary forming) set of practices that facilitated both the inclusion and exclusion of non-‘Buddhist’ concepts and people within a particular cosmological frame. Juxtaposing the premodern against the backdrop of colonial modernity, de Silva Wijeyeratne tells us that in contrast modern 'Sinhalese Buddhism/nationalism' is a much more reified and bounded concept, one imagined through a 19th century epistemology whose purpose was not so much inclusion, but a much more radical exclusion of non-‘Buddhist’ ideas and people. In this insightful analysis modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, then, emerges through the conjunction of discourse, power and knowledge at a distinct moment in the trajectory of the colonial State. An intrinsic feature of this modernist moment is that premodern categories (such as the cosmic order) were subject to a bureaucratic re-valuation that generated profound consequences for State-society relations and the wider constitutional/legal imaginary. This book goes onto explore how key constitutional and nation-building moments were framed within the cultural milieu of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism – a nationalism that reveals the power of a re-valued Buddhist cosmic order to still inform the present. Given the intensification of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist project following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, this book is of interest to scholars of nationalism, South Asian studies, the anthropology of ritual, and comparative legal history.
Download or read book Conceptions of State and Kingship in Southeast Asia written by Robert Heine-Geldern and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of "the ideological foundations" of the monarchical governments of Southeast Asia, specifically in Hindu-Buddhist cultures, this book examines political thought on the nature of rule.
Download or read book Malay Kingship in Kedah written by Maziar Mozaffari Falarti and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book probes and examines traditional sources of royal power and control, as well as indigenous socio-political systems in the Malay world. It is focused on the north-western Malaysian Sultanate of Kedah which is acknowledged as the oldest unbroken independent kingship line in the 'Malay and Islamic world' with 1,000 years of history. Little scholarly attention has been paid to its pre-modern history, society, religion, system of government and unique geographic situation, potentially controlling both land and sea lines of communication into the remainder of Southeast Asia. It will thus provide the first comprehensive treatment in English, or other languages, on Kedah's pre-modern and nineteenth century historiography and can provide a foundation for comparative studies of the various Malay states which is presently lacking. The proposed book also sheds much needed light on a range of important topics in Malay history including: Kedah and the northern Melaka Straits history, colonial expansion and rivalry, Southeast Asian history and politics, interregional migration and the influence of the sea peoples or orang laut, traditional Malay socio-political and economic life, Islamic influences and the course of Thai-Malay relations. The book attempts to offer a new understanding, not only of Kedah, but of the political and cultural development of the entire Malay world and of its relationships with the broader forces in both its continental and maritime settings. It argues that Kedah does not seem to follow, and in fact, often seems to contradict what has been commonly been accepted as the "typical model" of the traditional Malay state. Thus it concludes that the ruling dynasty has historically exploited a wide range of unique environmental conditions, local traditions, global spiritual trends and economic forces to preserve and strengthen its political position.
Download or read book Constitutional Bricolage written by Eugénie Mérieau and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-02 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the unique constitutional system in operation in Thailand as a continuous process of bricolage between various Western constitutional models and Buddhist doctrines of Kingship. Reflecting on the category of 'constitutional monarchy' and its relationship with notions of the rule of law, it investigates the hybridised semi-authoritarian, semi-liberal monarchy that exists in Thailand. By studying constitutional texts and political practices in light of local legal doctrine, the book shows that the monarch's affirmation of extraordinary prerogative powers strongly rests on wider doctrinal claims about constitutionalism and the rule of law. This finding challenges commonly accepted assertions about Thailand, arguing that the King's political role is not the remnant of the 'unfinished' borrowing of Western constitutionalism, general disregard for the law, or cultural preference for 'charismatic authority', as generally thought. Drawing on materials and sources not previously available in English, this important work provides a comprehensive and critical account of the Thai 'mixed constitutional monarchy' from the late 19th century to the present day.
Download or read book The King Never Smiles written by Paul M. Handley and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, the only king ever born in the United States, came to the throne of his country in 1946 and is now the world's longest-serving monarch. This book tells the unexpected story of his life and 60-year rule: how a Western-raised boy came to be seen by his people as a living Buddha; and how a king widely seen as beneficent and apolitical could in fact be so deeply political, autocratic, and even brutal. Paul Handley provides an extensively researched, factual account of the king's youth and personal development, ascent to the throne, skilful political maneuverings, and attempt to shape Thailand as a Buddhist kingdom. Blasting apart the widely accepted image of the king as egalitarian and virtuous, Handley convincingly portrays an anti-democratic monarch who, together with allies in big business and the corrupt Thai military, has protected a centuries-old, barely-modified feudal dynasty. When at nineteen Bhumibol assumed the throne after the still-unsolved shooting of his brother, the Thai monarchy had been stripped of power and prestige. Over the ensuing decades, Bhumibol became the paramount political actor in the kingdom, crushing critics while attaining high status among his people. The book details this process and depicts Thailand's unique constitutional monarch in the full light of the facts.
Download or read book Buddhist Fury written by Michael K. Jerryson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buddhist violence is not a well-known concept. In fact, it is generally considered an oxymoron. An image of a Buddhist monk holding a handgun or the idea of a militarized Buddhist monastery tends to stretch the imagination; yet these sights exist throughout southern Thailand. Michael Jerryson offers an extensive examination of one of the least known but longest-running conflicts of Southeast Asia. Part of this conflict, based primarily in Thailand's southernmost provinces, is fueled by religious divisions. Thailand's total population is over 92 percent Buddhist, but over 85 percent of the people in the southernmost provinces are Muslim. Since 2004, the Thai government has imposed martial law over the territory and combatted a grass-roots militant Malay Muslim insurgency. Buddhist Fury reveals the Buddhist parameters of the conflict within a global context. Through fieldwork in the conflict area, Jerryson chronicles the habits of Buddhist monks in the militarized zone. Many Buddhist practices remain unchanged. Buddhist monks continue to chant, counsel the laity, and accrue merit. Yet at the same time, monks zealously advocate Buddhist nationalism, act as covert military officers, and equip themselves with guns. Buddhist Fury displays the methods by which religion alters the nature of the conflict and shows the dangers of this transformation.
