From Arab Spring to
Thai Crisis: the Spirit of Global Democratizationby Dr. Larry
Diamond, Tuesday 27 December
2011 at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
From Arab Spring to
Thai Crisis: the Spirit of Global Democratization
by Dr. Larry
Diamond,
Tuesday 27 December
2011 at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
The
King Prajadhipok's Institute (KPI), in cooperation with the Institute of
Security and International Studies (ISIS), Thailand Democracy Watch and
Chulalongkorn University, organized a public lecture on ?From Arab Spring to
Thai crisis: the Spirit of Global Democratization? by Dr. Larry Diamond on
December 27, 2011. Larry Diamond is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy. At
Stanford University, he is professorof
political science and sociology, and a director of the Center on Democracy,
Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), Stanford University.
He
came to Thailand to present his findings on the latest developments of
democracy worldwide.
After
Prof. Dr. Supachai Yavaprabhas, Dean of Chulalongkorn University Faculty of
Political Science delivered the welcoming remarks, Dr. Larry Diamond started
his presentation by exposing his main idea : the third wave of democratization,
as coined by Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington in 1991, might be over.
Indeed, although there is an explosion in the number of democracies around the
globe since the end of the Cold War, many democracies are actually a facade.
They adopt the institutional attributes of democracy, like elections or checks
and balances institutions, but without guaranteeing rights and freedoms to
their people. In other terms, these regimes might be electoral democracies but
are not liberal democracies.
What
is the difference ? On the one hand, the electoral democracy is a ?minimalist?
version of democracy. Itfosters a
multiparty system and regularly contested elections. On the other hand, the
liberal democracy is what Dr. Larry Diamond names ?high-quality? democracy. It
builds on the electoral democracy and adds features such as popular control
over government, participation, vertical and horizontal accountability, minority
rights, and rule of law.In fact, only
two-thirds of the world's electoral democracies can be defined as liberal or
high-quality.
More
interestingly, after the number of democracies worldwide peaked at 62.7 percent
of all states in 2006, their number decreased to such an extent (26 reversals
since 1999) that Dr. Larry Diamond talks about a ?democratic recession?.
Thailand is one example of such a return to authoritarian rule, i.e military
rule.
Democracy
is in danger, according to Larry Diamond, not only in the developing world
where freedom of speech is still under major threat but also in established
European and American democracies currently experiencing a fiscal disarray that
could lead to discredit the democratic model.
However,
democratic aspirations, aspirations for justice and dignity, are not yet to
fade away as the Arab Spring wave that spread over North Africa illustrated.
Discussants
to Dr. Larry Diamond included Professor Dr. Likhit Dhiravegin and Professor Dr.
Suchit Bunbonkarn, both distinguished Thai scholars, expressed their views on
the Thai crisis. The panel was moderated by Professor Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee,
Thailand Democracy Watch and Dr. Thawilwadee Bureekul, Director of the Research
and Development Office, King Prajadhipok's Institute. Dr. Suchit noted that the
Thai crisis shared a few common characteristics with the Arab Spring, such as
the use of social media, Facebook and Twitter as a mobilization tool. Injustice
and rising inequalities are the driving forces behind such mobilization, here
in Thailand like in the Arab World and many more countries in transition.Dr. Likhit ended the lecture by a poem he
authored, ?Vox populi, vox dei? before the questions and answers session.
