Proud to be Thai: The puzzling absence of ethnicity-based political cleavages in Northeastern Thailand

• Main Author: RICKS, Jacob I.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: ethnic identity; ethnic mobilization; nation-building; nationalism; Thailand; Asian Studies; Political Science; Race and Ethnicity
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2962; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4219/viewcontent/Proud_to_be_Thai_sv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Underneath the veneer of a homogenous state-approved Thai ethnicity,Thailand is home to a heterogeneous population. Only about one-thirdof Thailand’s inhabitants speak the national language as their mothertongue; multiple alternate ethnolinguistic groups comprise the remainderof the population, with the Lao in the northeast, often called Isan people,being the largest at 28 percent of the population. Ethnic divisions closelyalign with areas of political party strength: the Thai Rak Thai Party and itssubsequent incarnations have enjoyed strong support from Isan people andKhammuang speakers in the north while the Democrat Party dominatesamong the Thai- and Paktay-speaking people of the central plains and thesouth. Despite this confluence of ethnicity and political party support, wesee very little mobilization along ethnic cleavages. Why? I argue that ethnicmobilization remains minimal because of the large-scale public acceptanceand embrace of the government-approved Thai identity. Even among thecountry’s most disadvantaged, such as Isan people, support is still strongfor “Thai-ness.” Most inhabitants of Thailand espouse the mantra that tobe Thai is superior to being labelled as part of an alternate ethnic group. Idemonstrate this through the application of large-scale survey data as wellas a set of interviews with self-identified Isan people. The findings suggestthat the Thai state has successfully inculcated a sense of national identityamong the Isan people and that ethnic mobilization is hindered by ardentnationalism.