Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra walks past a military honor guard during a welcoming ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing April 17, 2012. UPI/Stephen Shaver
Anyone living in Thailand during the summer months of 2011
were prone to hear political trucks blasting campaign slogans and anthems
throughout the streets all over the country.
In July of that same year, the Thai people elected Yingluck Shinawatra,
Thailand’s first female Prime Minister.
This was a huge step forward for a country that had ranked 92 out of 138
countries on the Gender Inequality Index.[1] Beyond her election to the highest office in
Thailand, she also became Chair to the National Committee on the Policy and
Strategy for the Advancement of Women.
Her election and service helped to regularize policies related to
women. It is important to look at the
overall trends however instead of merely analyzing one figure’s impact. The results are more alarming than this
progressive election might lead one to believe.
There
are several institutional sources that demand gender equality in Thailand. Most prominent among these is Thailand’s 2007
Constitution. This phenomenal work was
produced by a huge cross-section of Thais, and included involvement from most
Thai factions, (ethnic, economic, and political). It was widely regarded by the international
community as a standard for developing democracies. This people’s constitution upheld the rights
of women. It did not discriminate,
either explicitly or informally against women running for office.
Following
the authoring of the Constitution, Thailand’s government initiated an Office of
Women’s Affairs and Family Development.
This organization worked under preexisting social development branches
of the government. Its primary role is
to serve as a catalyst to empower women.
As Thailand’s government began to shift its focus onto women, it would
seem that greater representative power would follow.
There
was a substantial bump in representation from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, women made up 15% of MPs, 16% of
senators, and 17% of senior civil service positions despite outnumbering men as
civil servants. At the local level, in 2008, women constituted 9.4% of elected
officials. The private sector had even
higher rates of board room participation.[2] While this is a great step forward, the
situation is still extremely problematic.
Not only is women’s civic involvement extremely low, women’s
representation is still terribly minimal.
The institutional changes that happened in the very recent past tried to
improve these inequalities, however, they were not sufficient enough to close
the gap completely. While these steps
are important steps to formalizing equal representation, the real problem in
Thailand lies at the recruitment level.
Asian
societal interactions are often known for their nepotistic style. Guan Xi in China and the caste system in
India are prime examples of this. While
nepotism and paybacks are not necessarily generalizable to all of Asia,
Thailand and other countries are still privy to this type of social
interaction. Patriarchal political
networks in Thailand such as the royal family and political parties, still
dominate the spectrum of political interaction.
Thailand’s use of clientelism provides a strategy for various Thai
political actors. It ensures their
continued power. Moreover, it provides
stability in a very unpredictable polity.
Thailand
is victim to numerous judicial and military coups over the past few
decades. The low regard for rule of law
in Thailand might explain why the 2007 Constitution and its agencies did not
completely achieve the goal of equality.
Stability is more important than gender equality for individual victims
of political instability. In a system
that is under constant flux, the few political organizations that maintain a
high level of importance are the political parties. These parties are the primary proponents of
clientelism. Clientelism is an informal
political and business tactic that requires the production and maintenance of
large and localized networks to help distribute services, goods, and money in
exchange for political salience and power.
Thailand’s
political powers are often seen as primary motivators of this type of
interaction. Where political parties
also use candidate selection procedures that are informal, exclusive and
localized, there are ample openings for clientelist practices to translate into
political power and ultimately parliamentary seats. The parties reinforce a male-dominated
system. The political capital in
Thailand at the party level is usually only accessible to men. These parties are necessary for the electoral
process. As such, the primary halting point to women’s participation is the
informal way in which political parties organize themselves.
Most
of the formalist solutions to this problem that are available by means of
legislation have already been employed.
The real problem of Thailand’s low women representation lies in the
recruitment phase of a politician’s life.
The clientelist approach of Thailand’s political parties prevent women
from even putting their names on the ballots.
The few times that women are actually elected, they are more often than
not, related to a network of male politicians.
Such is the case of Yingluck, sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra. While highly important
institutional changes have taken place to establish greater gender equality,
the informal societal interactions of political parties have to shift in order
to achieve true equality in Thailand’s government.
[1] UN Women Thailand Country
Programme. Bangkok: UN Women: United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the
Empowerment of Women, 2012.
[2] Bjarnegård, Elin. Men in
Politics: Revisiting Patterns of Gendered Parliamentary Representation in
Thailand and Beyond. Uppsala: Dept. of Government, Centre for Gender Research,
Uppsala Univ., 2009.
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