最新消息

時間：9月26日(星期三)15:30~17:00
地點：台大社會科學院東亞民主研究中心會議室(512室)
演講主題：Democracy Derailed: The Variant Cases of Thailand and Cambodia

講者簡介/
Paul Chambers serves as Lecturer and Special Advisor for International Affairs at the College
of ASEAN Community Studies (CACS), Naresuan University, Phitsanulok, Thailand. He is
also a Research Affiliate at the German Institute of Global Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg,
Germany, the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) in Frankfurt, Germany, and the
Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. His
research interests focus on Southeast Asia in the areas of democracy, civil-military relations,
international politics and the political economy of the Greater Mekong Sub-region. Chambers
has written four books (three books on the security sector in Southeast Asia) as well as
numerous journal articles and book chapters about the military, police democratization, and
international politics of Southeast Asia. His articles have appeared in Asian Survey, Critical
Asian Studies and the Journal of Contemporary Asia, among others. He has specifically
concentrated his research on Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Laos.

演講摘要/
LONG ABSTRACT: This study examines the decline of democracy in Thailand and
Cambodia. According to Merkel (2004), where five interconnected partial regimes of
electoral regime, political rights, civil rights, horizontal accountability, effective power to
govern are not damaged then a country can be said to possess embedded democracy. But
where one or more of these is damaged, then that country is considered to have a defective

democracy. In 2018, Thailand and Cambodia, previously defective democracies, have seen
their democratic quality diminish to zero. Freedom House classifies each as “not free.”One
could argue that each country began to experience precipitous democratic decline recently.
In 2014 Thailand experienced a military coup and in 2017 Cambodia’s government
imprisoned opposition leaders while dissolving the chief opposition party in parliament. But
the authoritarian trajectories of the two countries have differed markedly. Thailand’s
democracy, when it has existed has always been extremely defective, since it has always been
overshadowed by monarchy and military. Only in 1946-1947 and 2001-2006 did Thailand
experience a higher degree of democratic quality. Meanwhile, Cambodia’s democracy was
perhaps strongest during 1993-1997. However, after the 1997 coup, it became dominated by
Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party. The study argues that Thailand
represents a case of institutionalized authoritarianism while Cambodia represents a case of
personalist authoritarianism. In each case, elites used the charade of defective democracy to
sustain their power and will likely in future revert to that charade once any threat to their
control is reduced. Yet how did the two countries’ authoritarian paths away from democracy
evolve until today? How were they different? What is the current state of democratic quality
in each country? What might be the democratic future in each country? This study addresses
these questions.
SHORT ABSTRACT: This study examines the decline of democracy in Thailand and
Cambodia. In 2018, Thailand and Cambodia, previously defective democracies, have seen
their democratic quality diminish to zero. The study argues that Thailand represents a case of
institutionalized authoritarianism while Cambodia represents a case of personalist
authoritarianism. In each case, elites used the charade of defective democracy to sustain their
power and will likely in future revert to that charade once any threat to their control is
reduced. Yet how did the two countries’ authoritarian paths away from democracy evolve
until today? How were they different? What is the current state of democratic quality in
each country? What might be the democratic future in each country? This study addresses
these questions.