Three populisms and two dead ends: Variants of agrarian populism in Thailand

Abstract

This article discusses three forms of agrarian populism in Thailand: the "grassroots populism" of the Assembly of the Poor, the "reactionary populism" of the yellow shirts, and the "capitalist populism" of the red shirts. We examine how these three strands of populism are embedded within dynamics of agrarian change in Thailand and how the intellectual and activist orientation towards agrarian populism led to the neglect of labour, particularly agricultural migrant workers. We show how key ideological underpinnings of the Assembly's grassroots populism (Brass's "agrarian myth") could be appropriated for the agrarian component of both reactionary and capitalist populism. Rather than a new populism, we argue that a broad and popular challenge to right-wing authoritarianism should develop inclusive class politics that embrace the rural-urban linkages that already define the social fabric of the new, rural, and agrarian precarious working class.agrarian myth, agrarian populism, migrant agricultural workers, rural-urban linkages, Thailand | INTRODUCTIONIn the search for "possibilities for progressive politics in the contemporary countryside" (Pattenden, editorial), this article agrees with Borras's (2020) insistence on broad, pluralistic alliances between different social movements and

Progressive politics and populism: Classes of labour and rural–urban political sociology—An introduction to the special issue

“…Others still—those on Pakistan, Mozambique, and Colombia —focus primarily on agrarian movements, both as long‐running processes of collective action and specific mobilizations. In doing so, they raise significant issues about the nature of agrarian alliances and agrarian populism (Aftab & Ali, this issue; Engels, this issue; Monjane, this issue; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue; Sankey, this issue). Some of the special issue articles also assess the contexts that shape possibilities for, and responses to, mobilization—addressing historical and contemporary state violence, or showing how forms of government are linked to dynamics of accumulation, both nationally and internationally (Bush, this issue; Jakobsen & Nielsen, this issue; Karataşli & Kumral, this issue; White et al, this issue).…”

“…The special issue's analysis extends to the multiple ways through which such a politics is impeded—for example, through state violence (Bush; Karataşli and Kumral, White et al); the sheer concentration of power among key sections of capital (Jakobsen and Nielsen; Karataşli and Kumral); divisive ideologies (Jakobsen and Nielsen; Kalb); and classes of labour's multiple internal fragmentations, which are often wrought and manipulated by the capitalist class to divide and co‐opt its opponents. Likewise, while increased welfare spending and higher wages can improve material conditions, and also expand classes of labour's political space by increasing their material independence from exploiting classes, such state interventions can also undermine the potential for collective action due to the often unequal distribution of public resources and its mediation by powerful actors for their own ends (Esping‐Andersen, 1990 for the broad discussion; also Karataşli and Kumral; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue).…”

“…The ‘political struggles of classes of labour’, he states (Bernstein, 2006, p. 456), ‘range across far wider terrains than issues of land, important as these are in particular places to particular groups of the “labouring poor”’. A number of articles in the special issue argue for alliances that encompass the rural and urban and focus, implicitly or explicitly, on the broader category of classes of labour (Engels, this issue; Karataşli & Kumral, this issue; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue) (see next section).…”

“…Social reproduction is increasingly stretched spatially, and the contributions to this special issue reflect that. Most of the articles point to daily, temporary, and longer‐term movement between the countryside and the city for work, and most outline a progressive politics that is neither rural nor urban, but both simultaneously (Bush, this issue; Engels, this issue; Jakobsen & Nielsen, this issue; Karataşli & Kumral, this issue; Pye & Chatuthai, this issue; White et al, this issue).…”

“…White et al see agrarian populism as one part of a broader struggle in Indonesia. For Pye and Chatuthai (this issue), though, agrarian populism in Thailand ‘stifles’ effective organization for a progressive politics anchored among ‘the new working‐class realities of rural society and of agrarian production’. They suggest that there is no longer a social base for the kind of broad agrarian front in the mould of Thailand's Assembly of the Poor, which peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s and was primarily rooted among PCP farmers.…”