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ABSTRACT
Previous research has shown that the majority of Thailand’s female Members of Parliament (MPs) elected in or before 2011 came from political families and constituted one small yet important part of the country’s dynastic democracy. This paper examines whether this pattern continued in the last two general elections of 2019 and 2023. It shows that a sizeable number of female MPs elected in 2019 and 2023 are related, by blood or marriage, to male MPs. While the restoration of electoral politics in 2019 has helped end military authoritarian rule, it has enabled well-connected and well-heeled women from political families to win parliamentary seats. Electoral dynasticism still constitutes a formidable, if not insurmountable, structural barrier to entry into Parliament for female candidates who do not have powerful family connections. Dynastic female MPs contribute, as in the previous decades, to adding a dynastic and patrimonial quality to Thailand’s democracy.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the two reviewers of this manuscript for their constructive and helpful feedback. Thanks are also due to the Critical Asian Studies editor Robert Shepherd for his support and copyediting. Part of this paper was presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies in Seattle, Washington, in March 2024. I would like to thank Allen Hicken, Paul Hutchcroft, Benedict Kerkvliet, Viengrat Nethipo, Mark Thompson, and Meredith Weiss for their questions and comments that helped me revise my initial manuscript.
Funding
None reported.
Notes
1 Inter-parliamentary Union Citation2024.
2 Although Singapore has yet to produce a female prime minister, Halimah Yacob became its President in 2017 and served in that role until 2023.
3 Loos Citation2006, 110–117; Reynolds Citation2006, 192–195.
4 Bjarnegård Citation2013; Iwanaga Citation2008.
5 Ockey Citation1999.
6 Nishizaki Citation2018, 379.
7 Nishizaki Citation2022, 9–10.
8 These files contain valuable information on MPs’ blood and marriage ties. Unless otherwise specified, the data presented hereafter draws on these files.
9 Prayut’s first regime (from 2014 to 2019) can only be described as authoritarian, because his regime grabbed power in a coup and there was no elected legislature. However, his second rule (from 2019 to 2023) had a semblance of democracy, in that he allowed an elected legislature to exist.
10 See, for example, Aim Citation2024; Hicken et al. Citation2023; McCargo Citation2024; McCargo and Anyarat Citation2020; Napon and Ricks Citation2024; Ricks Citation2019.
11 See, for example, Pasuk and Baker Citation2000, 136, 158; Sombat Citation2002, 207–208, 217–218.
12 Chambers, Srisompob, and Takahashi Citation2023; Ockey Citation2015; Prajak Citation2016; Rangsivek Citation2013; Stithorn and Wichuda Citation2016.
13 For example, some female politicians may rely more heavily on support from their parties than do others.
14 To be clear, these 167 MPs ran as successful candidates on either or both of the 2019 and 2023 ballots. Twenty-five women won on both ballots. Each of them is counted once.
15 One of these 115 constituency MPs also was elected as a party-list candidate. Another fifty-two women were elected under the party-list system only.
16 Nishizaki Citation2018, 380.
17 McCargo and Anyarat Citation2020, 109; Viengrat et al. Citation2023, 366, 367.
18 She is Jaruwan Saranket (elected on the party-list), daughter of Saranwut Saranket (elected in 2019 as a Utaradit MP on the Phuea Thai ticket). Saranwut also won election in 2005 and 2011 as a Utaradit MP under the banners of Thai Rak Thai and Phuea Thai, respectively.
19 One of them is Thisana Choonhavan, granddaughter of former Prime Minister Chatichai (in office, 1988–1991) and daughter of former Bangkok Senator (2000–2006) and Democrat party-list MP (2008–2011) Kraisak.
20 Viengrat et al. Citation2023.
21 Nishizaki Citation2022, 17.
22 Of these seventy-five dynastic female MPs, fifty-seven were elected as constituency MPs in thirty provinces, and twenty were elected as party-list MPs.
23 Suthikarn Citation2023, 267.
24 Southern Border Area News Citation2007.
25 See Achakorn Citationn.d., 171–173.
26 See Nishizaki Citation2023 for details.
27 The MPs discussed here include those who died, resigned, or were stripped of their political status after getting elected, as well as those who won by-elections.
28 Quoted in Branigan Citation2011.
29 See Nishizaki Citation2022, 174–175.
30 * = female MP; year in bold = year of senate election. These notes apply to all tables below.
31 McCargo Citation2009, 60.
32 Accused by the government of being involved in a separatist insurgency and fearing for his life, Amin fled to exile in Malaysia in 1980. See Bum-aree Citation2006, 17, 21, 26–27.
33 McCargo Citation2009, 63, 65.
34 McCargo Citation2009, 64.
35 Askew Citation2008.
36 Montesano Citation2020.
37 Petdau lost to a wealthy Buddhist car dealer – an outcome Den blamed on “money politics,” a Thai euphemism for vote-buying. See McCargo Citation2009, 699; McCargo Citation2019.
38 According to one of my reviewers, the Bhumjai Thai leader Anuthin Charnwirakul placed Petdau on the party list in the expectation that she would deliver votes for his party in Pattani. In the end, Bhumjai Thai won just one seat.
39 McCargo and Chanintira Citation2023, 639-640.
40 One of my reviewers, who is obviously quite familiar with the political scene in Pattani, has supplied this valuable information.
41 Wasan et al. Citation2014, 137.
42 She was reelected in 2005.
43 At the time of her election in 2007, her declared assets, together with her husband’s, exceeded 193 million baht, making her one of the richest female MPs in Thailand.
44 Wannarat’s wife, Temsiri, is Poonpirom’s elder sister.
45 Her murder was attributed to political and economic conflicts between the Nop-amonbodi-Saksomboon group and their rivals, including then-Ratchaburi senator Napinthon Srisanpang. Napinthon’s company, Agro Commerce Group (whose largest shareholder was Wiwat Nitikanchana, another Ratchaburi MP), had dominated local agricultural trade since it was established in 1994, until Petch Muang Rat was founded by the Nop-amonbodis and Saksomboons in 2005. In 2003, Agro Commerce Group generated a profit of 9.8 million baht, but for the next three years it incurred a deficit of 3.5 million baht (Ministry of Commerce Citation1994).
46 Thaksin’s father, Lert, was a younger brother of Chaisit’s father, Sak.
47 Before the 2019 election, a conflict emerged within the Sinthuprai family. Nisit’s younger sister Jureepon and younger brother Wichienchanin expressed their interest in running for parliamentary seats under the PT banner. Nisit fielded his daughter as a candidate instead, and Jureeporn ran unsuccessfully as a party-list candidate for the anti-Thaksin Palang Pracharat. Meanwhile, Wichienchanin joined Future Forward. See Suthikarn Citation2023, 267.
48 Jureepon’s son Thonchai, a Thai Sang Thai Party candidate, also lost his race in another district of Roi Et.
49 Asaree Citation2019.
50 Quoted in Branigan Citation2011.
51 At the time of the 2011 election, Sopa, along with her husband, held assets of more than 755.8 million baht, making her the third richest female MP elected in 2011, after Anchalee Thepabutr, a hotel tycoon from Phuket, and Kalaya Soponpanit, whose husband Chote ran the Bangkok Bank.
52 Sai Silp Citation2006.
53 Human Rights Watch Citation2010, 91.
54 Since 2001, the number of parliamentary seats has remained at 500, except in 2007, when it dropped to 480. But it has considerably increased over the decades, from seventy-eight seats in 1933, to 269 in 1975, and 393 in 1996.
55 Nishizaki Citation2022, 11.
56 Miliband Citation1969; Hewison Citation1989, 30.
57 Sukumol Khunpluem’s husband and two brothers-in-law have all previously served as MPs for Chonburi multiple times.
58 Ratchanee’s cousin Noppadol also served as a Roi Et MP, from 2008 until 2011.
59 Recent research on other countries has also demonstrated that there is a negative correlation between dynastic politicians and their political performance. See Folke et al. Citation2017; Rossi Citation2017; Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre Citation2013.
60 Duangmanee Citation2016; Hewison Citation2021, 265–266; Pasuk Citation2016; Walker Citation2012, 44–45.
61 World Bank Group Citation2022, 11.
62 Pasuk Citation2016; Acemoglu and Robinson Citation2009.
63 Domhoff 1983, 208.
64 Domhoff 1983, 205
65 See Dal Bó et al. Citation2009; Geys Citation2017 for similar points.
Additional information
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Yoshinori Nishizaki
Yoshinori Nishizaki is an Associate Professor in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Political Authority and Provincial Identity in Thailand: The Making of Banharn-buri (Cornell University Southeast Asian Studies, 2011) and Dynastic Democracy: Political Families in Thailand (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022). His articles on Thai politics have appeared in Critical Asian Studies, the Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, Pacific Affairs, and other journals.