The recent typically well mannered coup d’etat in Thailand has been loudly depreciated by the usual people, with calls to ‘return to democratic government’ being made. But in truth in places like Thailand (or Turkey), the military acts as an informal check on the untrammelled political power of democratically elected politicians, rather like the Supreme Court in the United State or (theoretically) the House of Lords in the UK.
Just as the Supreme Court regularly thwarts the ability of impeccably democratically elected politician to pass laws pandering to the vox populi without howls for a ‘return to democratic government’, the military in Thailand is there to stomp on over-mighty politicos who try and break the commonly accepted boundaries of ‘the system’. Well mannered coups are (usually) the norm in Bangkok and should be thought of as a sort of common law ‘House’ of Lords engaging in a political ritual , rather like Black Rod bagging on the door of the Commons, it is just that the Thai ritual involves parking tanks and armoured personnel carriers in front of TV stations.
I take no position on whether of not this particular coup was a Good Idea as I just do not follow the day to day realities of Thai politics closely enough to make an informed guess, but the idea of the military acting as a check on democratic civilian government when conducted like this is really not offensive to me. I just see it as different sort of Supreme Court… with tanks.
Perry, I think I broadly sympathise on the checks and balances part, but let’s be careful here. Take a look at the history of South America and ask yourself just how much a check on the abuse of power the military’s various coups were in real practice. The Argenine junta did not strike me as particularly mindful of checks on power, for instance.
Sure, all military coups are not equal, that is for sure… but my point is really that reflexively denouncing coups just because they over-turn a democratically elected government is a mistake. Islamists were thwarted from being elected in Algeria too, and yet I would argue that was a Good Thing.
I am not so much in favour of military coups as against blanket denouncement of anything which over-turns a democratic government, without taking context into account.
“Take a look at the history of South America and ask yourself just how much a check on the abuse of power the military’s various coups were in real practice. ”
Johnathan, I’m afraid you’re not very well informed about South America, or, rather – your information, such as it is, comes mainly from the leftist MSM, which is biased.
South America had in the past some very bad, corrupt and incompetent civil (“democratic”) governments, usually also marxist to some degree. (It also has some such bad governments today, but that’s another story).
These civilian governments were to a great degree abusive and irrespectful of individual rights and especially – property rights. They did nor respect their own constitutions, and the decrees of their own judiciary (as was the case with Allende in Chile).
So, in many cases, the military served indeed as “checks and balances” – or – saved the country from total marxist destruction and despotism. That does not mean that the military regimes were in all cases perfect – some were better, others were worse. But they indeed did save the country from total chaos, or from marxist totalitarion rule (like in Cuba). So – some military regimes (like that of Pinochet) had an overall positive effect, others less so.
There were also marxist coups – marxist military regimes – one such was in Peru in 1970.
So, you have to judge on a case by case basis, and get well informed on the details of each case.
In general, Perry is right. Military regimes did indeed play very important positive roles in many countries.
Current examples should also mention Algeria and Pakistan, where military regimes are preventing muhllocratic madness.
I hardly think the role of the military in most cases can be remotely called “positive”. As Perry suggests, the military in some countries can at best be regarded as offering some sort of check on crazed ideologues (think of Chile, Pakistan maybe), but this is not an argument I would stretch very far. It may be an occasional necessary evil, nothing more.
The key test is whether the military has some sort of institutional constraint of its own that ensures it hands power back to civilians and allows a free regime to develop. I can think of a few, but flawed examples: Spain, Portugal, Greece (not that long ago, remember), Chile, etc. But in some cases the military only quit after a catastrophe or uprising: Argentina, Ecuador, etc.
The army played a key role in pre-WW2 Japanese politics, remember, and that was not much of a check on power, as we know.
Sorry guys, but I cannot see military coups in much of a good light.
I don’t think Perry is remotely saying that military coups are always and everywhere good things; he’s just denouncing the knee-jerk reaction that they’re always a bad thing.
Sure you can 🙂 After all, you gave several example where a coup was invaluable in preventing dreadful civilian governments from doing what they wanted.
Ghana is another one. Jerry Rawlings was not without his major flaws but he did save this nation from becoming another Congo.
Robert… indeed.
In the case of Thailand, Thaksin was, basically, bribing the rural poor with taxpayers money to gain power. He was vote-buying just as Blair vote buys when he promises universal “free” childcare.
The Thaksin Thai-Rak-Thai party was basically undemocratic as it was brought to power via corruption of one section of the electorate.
We used to have a safeguard of sorts against this – the law repealled in 1908 (CMIIAW) that prevented people who gained an income from the state voting. I think this should be returned to the statute books, but I doubt it will.
Sadly, Supreme Court rulings in the US which overturn acts of elected legislatures are indeed regularly denounced here as illegitimate interference with democracy, especially when such rulings thwart laws which enforce Christian religious taboos. I do not know whether the specific term “coup” has ever been hurled at the judiciary for exercising its Constitutional function, but that would be well within the typical range of such rhetoric.
I don’t know much about Thai politics either, but your point about the military exercising a Supreme-Court-like role is well taken in the case of Turkey. The irony is that the EU, by sternly admonishing the Turkish military to stay out of politics as a condition of the country’s prospective membership, has actually weakened Turkey’s secularist immune system and allowed Islamists to make political gains.
The Supreme Court striking down laws passed by Congress isn’t in the Constitution. That is a power that was taken on when the Court decided Marbury versus Madison in 1803.
On the minus side, yeah, the military coup is dangerous and can be abused.
On the plus side, while Andrew Jackson could ignore the court, it’s rather harder to ignore the Army.
(“Let him enforce it” is an effective quip at a judge, when one is chief executive, sometimes, but rather more hollow in the face of light armor and infantry, who make a stellarly effective enforcement mechanism for certain decisions.)
It is the very essence of the American system and without it, the USA would not be a Republic at all, it would just be a parliamentary democracy like Britain (the monarchy is irrelevent), in which the democratic legislature has supremacy over all other arms of the state.
Johnathan and Jacob, The army can be an effective check and balance in the same sense that newspapers can be used as dishcloths, it will do at a pinch, but there are better options.
The worst thing aout military juntas, by the way, is that they suck at fighting wars c.f. the Falklands.
You can consider yourself lucky if any of the national institutions within your country actually have the best interests of the people at large rather than themselves. We in Britain have a very small number within the House of Lords.
“We used to have a safeguard of sorts against this – the law repealled in 1908 (CMIIAW) that prevented people who gained an income from the state voting. I think this should be returned to the statute books, but I doubt it will.”
Such a law would prevent soldiers from voting. Absurd on its face. Who else is more entitled to that most basic prerogative of citizenship?
Gabriel,
“…but there are better options.”
In some countries, in some cultures there are better options. In other countries (in most countries) those better options just don’t exist. They might be in theory better, but they don’t exist in fact.
“military juntas, by the way, …. suck at fighting wars”
It’s not military juntas – it’s Argentine juntas. In Argentine there are many citizens of Italian origin, and it is from there that they imported their military methods.
There is a hugh difference between a military coup (however bloodless) and military support for alternative civilian claimants on power (e.g., the Philippines in 1986, Ukraine in 2004). The Latin American militaries imposed brutal dictatorships in place of the incompetent civilian governments they replaced.
Thaksin has agreed for new elections later this year after the April election were invalidated by the Constitutional Court. The military feared that TRT would win the next elections, so it couped.
That’s hardly a genuine check but an unwillingness to play by the rules.
That is rather the whole point… the army in Thailand acts as a ‘common law’ check against de jure power, which can be bought. It is about values versus rules.
Jim:Such a law would prevent soldiers from voting. Absurd on its face. Who else is more entitled to that most basic prerogative of citizenship?
Independent Civilians. Soldiers are paid agents of the state. Soldiers, police – they need to be apolitical. If they have the vote it interferes with their work and their work interferes with their voting.
Disenfranchising public employees on such grounds would be preposterous. In a modern society, almost everyone has some sort of economically-significant relationship with the state which could be looked upon as distorting his voting decisions.
By that argument, one could equally well withdraw the vote from anyone who owns a car (driven on state-subsidized roads), or from anyone who lives in a high-crime area (exceptionally dependent on the police).
Or even from anyone who pays more than a trivial amount of taxes — or do you think that voting one’s self-interest is OK when it favors making the government smaller, but not-OK when it favors making it bigger?
Everyone votes, for high-minded or selfish or even stupid reasons — that’s up to them. Once you start thinking up reasons to disenfranchise certain groups, there’s no end to it.
I wondered if Perry was perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek; worse fates can befall Britain. In many places on the Net is a dashed defeatist attitude, an assumption we are doomed to dhimmitude or other suppression of all liberty and the elephant in the room is clearly invisible. I have absolutely no idea what Her Majesty’s Armed Forces think of the current state of the nation (other than through reading the ARRSE forums, of course) but unlike others I do note that they exist and, should push come to shove, they must surely be considered a factor in the equation.
I am all for a return to a property franchise qualification 🙂
A bit, I do confess…
In the long run I really do not think ‘my side’ will lose (we certainly can lose, I just do not think we will), so I am actually one of the wild-eyed optimists. I think 75% of the people who will eventually be on my side just do not realise it yet 🙂
Perry, spot on in the analysis, woefully wrong on your history. Do you not remember the bloodshed of ’92? This will only be a good thing if the military hand back power swiftly and allow truly independent bodies to prosecute Thaksin’s and his cronies for their corruption and utter disregard for basic human rights (read his drug war). However, history, in the aforementioned example, shows us the military have in the past sought to cling to power too long, that is where the real system of checks and balances kicks in. For it was the middle classes, those sick of seeing their rising living standards and new prosperity threatened who rose up over a decade ago. For now, the coup seems promising, but leaves us in the eerie situation of Indonesia being the most democratic state in SE Asia.
In the case of Thailand, there was already check and balances – the courts nullified the previous elections and there was supposed, before the coup happen, to be a general election in Thailand.
The coup would not solve the problem of a populist taking over, slowly eroding Thai institutions – having them come in every so often shows a distinct and fundamental problem with Thailand’s political structures. The main contributing factor to Thaksin Sinawatra’s continued electoral victories was his popularity amongst the rural poor – in Thailand, the income gap between rural and urban areas is so vast, they’re practically different countries.
Because of that, Thailand is better off being ruled as a loose federation – the Bangkok and Chiang Mai middle class can rest assure that a substantial amount of their tax money isn’t used to finance populist, almost corrupt, programs.