Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand.

• Date: 01 April 2024
• Author: Cogan, Mark S.

Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand. By Petra Alderman. New York City, New York: Routledge, 2024. Hardcover: 252pp.

Petra Alderman chose an ideal case study to investigate "nation branding", a concept coined by Simon Anholt in 1998 and later developed by Peter van Ham in Foreign Affairs in 2001. Initially, it meant that the reputation of a country was similar to that of the brand of a company or product. It was later revised to be more closely associated with national identity and economic competitiveness. In an era of complex geopolitics, a state's success on the world stage depends more on its "perceived attractiveness rather than military might", Alderman writes (p. 3). Thus, she adeptly builds upon van Ham's concept and uniquely applies it to Thailand during its most recent period of military rule (2014-19). Other observers of Thai politics have also noted elements of nation branding, such as the junta's "Return Happiness to the People" campaign. This carefully managed public-relations effort included the production of patriotic films, soldiers ordered to pose for photos in uniform when patrolling the streets of Bangkok and a trite song bearing the name of the junta leader, Prayut Chan-ocha. This period of military rule provides rich material for analysing Thailand's "inward-looking" legitimation strategy, which Alderman argues contained carefully crafted imagery, ideas of nationalism, and dichotomies of "us and them" to construct a "reimagined" national identity centred on a projected sense of unity, with its branding built around establishing ideas of "happiness"...