When scholars analyse Thai politics, they tend to give importance to institutions like the monarchy, the military, the parliament, and political parties; or, political ideas like ‘royalist nationalism’ or democracy. But what if the real driver of Thai politics was none of these things, but instead, political families? 

Yoshinori Nishizaki examines this proposition in his new book, Dynastic Democracy: Political Families in Thailand, which has just been published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2022. In this incredibly researched book, Nishizaki makes the powerful argument that it is the struggles between different political families have helped shape modern Thai politics. In pursuing this argument Nishizaki questions some of the major assumptions about Thailand’s political history. The book’s approach may also help us in understand the contemporary politics of other Southeast Asian countries.

Patrick Jory teaches Southeast Asian History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland. He can be reached at: [email protected].

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