Fighting for Virtue: Justice and Politics in Thailand.

AuthorLarsson, Tomas
PositionBook review

Fighting for Virtue: Justice and Politics in Thailand. By Duncan McCargo. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2019. Hardcover: 261pp.

The March 2019 elections in Thailand generated one major surprise: the unexpected electoral success of the progressive Future Forward Party. However, the fate of this new bete noire of the Thai establishment was not unexpected to anyone attuned to what is often referred to as the "judicialization" of Thai politics over the past twenty years. Indeed, the Constitutional Court, as part of what Duncan McCargo calls the "network monarchy", quickly took a leaf out of the playbook for how to deal with an earlier (perceived) threat to the established order: former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The Future Forward Party was therefore immediately forced to run the gauntlet of the Thai judicial system, with the ultimate outcome regarded as a foregone conclusion by many observers. The Constitutional Court first prevented party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit from taking his seat in parliament, and then, in February 2020, dissolved the party. Thanathorn still faces criminal charges and though it may dismay many it would surprise few if he eventually receives a prison sentence.

McCargo's new book, Fighting for Virtue: Justice and Politics in Thailand, does not deal directly with these recent developments. However, it does provide valuable background and insight into the workings of the "political trial" as a phenomenon in contemporary Thai politics, of which these were the latest manifestations. And there is a direct link to the main pivot around which McCargo's exposition turns--an organogram depicting a supposed plot to overthrow the Thai monarchy. Thanathorn, as it happens, is one of the allegedly treasonous individuals named there (p. 113).

The book is divided into three sections. The first three chapters provide background on the habitus of Thai judges, with an emphasis on their recruitment, education, socialization and career trajectories. Emphasized here is the almost monastic character of the life of a Thai judge; the intimate intertwining or fusion of throne, bench and Buddhism; the subservience of the courts not only to the monarchy but also to the military, whose coups and decrees they unfailingly validate; and, finally, the collective intellectual impoverishment of the Thai judicial system, revealed to embarrassing effect by progressive legal scholars such as Worajet Pakeerat and Piyabutr...

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