Chulalongkorn’s policies were continued by his sons Vajiravudh (Rama VI; reigned 1910–25) and Prajadhipok (Rama VII; 1925–35). In 1917 Vajiravudh, the first Thai monarch to be educated abroad, opened Thailand’s first university, which he named for his father. In 1921 he made universal primary education compulsory throughout the country. To assimilate the growing number of Chinese entering the country, he passed an act that required all students to be taught to read, write, and speak Standard Thai (Siamese) and to be instructed in their duties as good Siamese citizens. Vajiravudh is noted principally, however, for promoting Thai nationalism. In his voluminous writings, he stressed the need for his subjects to be loyal to nation, religion, and king. He not only strengthened the army and navy but also created a paramilitary organization, the Wild Tiger Corps, that was independent of the regular army. In 1917 he took Siam into World War I on the side of the Allies, and, after the war, he succeeded in persuading the Western powers to give up their extraterritorial rights in Siam. In addition, Vajiravudh passed a law in 1913 that required all Siamese to adopt surnames, and he encouraged his people to adopt clothing styles based on European models, which were considered to be more modern than Siamese styles, and to abandon such habits as chewing betel.

Vajiravudh was notorious for extravagance, and his successor, Prajadhipok, inherited serious fiscal problems from his brother. The new king ordered layoffs throughout most government departments, both at the start of his reign and again during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The cuts caused severe economic hardships for many government officials and their families and added to popular discontent with the monarchy during his reign. A rising middle class was also growing increasingly unhappy with the domination of the government by members of the royal family and with the absence of wider participation in political decision making. An emerging popular press was able to give voice to these discontents.

The 1932 coup and the creation of a constitutional order

One focus of civilian discontent centred on a group of students who had been educated overseas and were deeply dissatisfied with the tight political control that Siam’s ruling families held over the country. Some of these students became politically radicalized during the course of their education in Europe in the 1920s and early ’30s. They were led by Pridi Phanomyong, a brilliant young lawyer studying in Paris, who became the leader of an organization of overseas Siamese students. He was closely associated with a career artillery officer, Luang Phibunsongkhram (Pibul Songgram), who was then studying military science in France. In 1927 Pridi and Phibunsongkhram formed the People’s Party, which became the nucleus of a revolutionary group plotting to overthrow Siam’s absolute monarchy. On their return to Siam the two men and their associates, who became known as the Promoters, built up a revolutionary following among students, nonroyal government officials, and military officers.

On June 24, 1932, while Prajadhipok was away from Bangkok, the Promoters staged a bloodless coup, seizing control of the army, imprisoning the royal officials who had constituted the ruling group, and persuading the king to agree to rule under a constitution. A State Council and National Assembly were established under the new government. Many members of the new government had not played a direct part in the coup, and some were quite conservative in their political thinking. In early 1933, when Pridi drew up an economic plan for the country that was far more radical than many members of the new government could accept, feelings ran so high that the king was forced to suspend the National Assembly. The military leaders, fearing that the royalists would regain control of the government, forced the reconstitution of the National Assembly, which was followed by an attempted royalist countercoup in October 1933 under Prince Boworadet (Bavoradej), a cousin of the king. Although there was no evidence of royal collusion, Prajadhipok found his position untenable. In early 1934 he left for England, and in March 1935 he abdicated. A regency council was appointed to act for his successor, Prince Ananda Mahidol, then a schoolboy studying in Switzerland, until he came of age.

Although it never actually confronted an external threat until 1941, the new military, led by well-trained, disciplined officers and equipped with modern weaponry, contributed to a fundamental restructuring of power within the country. The 1932 revolution succeeded only because it was supported by military units led by nonroyal officers. Between 1933 and the end of 1938 the military grew ever stronger. The years just before World War II were marked by a tripling of the military budget, the establishment (1934) and subsequent spread of a paramilitary youth movement with fascist overtones, and a growing alliance with Japan.

The Phibunsongkhram dictatorship and World War II

In December 1938 Phibunsongkhram took over as military dictator, and the following year he changed the name of the country from Siam to Thailand. He embarked on a strongly nationalistic policy that was chauvinistic and anti-Chinese at home and irredentist and pro-Japanese abroad, and he set out to elevate the position of the military—especially the army, in which he held the rank of field marshal—and to portray it as the defender of the country. Luang Wichit Watthakan, Phibunsongkhram’s influential ideologist, drew on a Japanese prototype for his ideal of wiratham, the “code of the warrior,” as the foundation for Thai nationalism. In November 1940, taking advantage of the defeat of France by Germany the previous June, Phibunsongkhram ordered the invasion of French territories in western Laos and northwestern Cambodia that formerly had been under Thai control. Japan supported Thai claims to the disputed lands.

Thailand’s leaders nonetheless sought help from Britain and France against an increasingly aggressive Japan, but the British were too deeply involved in Europe to provide them with meaningful support. On December 8, 1941—following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii—Japanese troops entered Thailand and requested the right of passage through the country to facilitate their planned surprise rear attack on British-held Singapore. After a brief fight against the advancing Japanese, all Thai troops were ordered by Phibunsongkhram to lay down their arms, and Thailand subsequently signed a full Treaty of Alliance with Japan; in January 1942 the Thai government declared war on Britain and the United States.

Thailand gained minor territorial concessions in Burma (Myanmar) and Malaya, as well as in Laos and Cambodia, from its wartime alliance with Japan, but the Thai economy suffered greatly, ultimately undermining public confidence in Phibunsongkhram. From 1942 onward, overseas resistance groups based in the United States and Britain made contact with similar groups within Thailand led by Pridi Phanomyong, then serving as regent in the absence of the young king Ananda. The Free Thai, as these groups were collectively known, conducted raids against the Japanese and succeeded in infiltrating the government. In July 1944 Phibunsongkhram was forced to resign, and in August 1945 Japan surrendered.

The postwar crisis and the return of Phibunsongkhram

Following the end of the war, Thailand’s primary aim was to restore its international reputation, given Phibunsongkhram’s wartime alliance with Japan. Thailand was generally supported in its aim, because most members of the international community—with the exception of Britain, which took a punitive stance toward the country—had never accepted Thailand’s declaration of war, maintaining that it had been signed under duress. As soon as Thailand returned the territories seized from France in 1940–41, it was admitted to the United Nations (1946), and its standing in the international community was restored.

The immediate postwar years, however, were not easy ones for Thailand. Phibunsongkhram narrowly escaped trial as a war criminal and temporarily retired from public life. Then, in June 1946, the recently enthroned Ananda Mahidol was found dead of a gunshot wound, an event that shocked the nation. The government, led by Pridi Phanomyong, the former head of the Free Thai Movement, was unable to make a convincing investigation into the death, hampered by powerful elements in the police and military who had been associated with the Phibunsongkhram regime. Pridi resigned, and his protégé, who succeeded him, was unable to quell the discontent fueled by rumours regarding the king’s death. In November 1947 the military staged a coup, and Pridi fled into exile. After Phibunsongkhram returned as prime minister in 1948, Pridi was accused of regicide and found guilty in absentia. The cause of Ananda’s death has never been conclusively determined, but evidence later emerged indicating that if King Ananda had been murdered, Phibunsongkhram’s allies were more likely than Pridi to have been responsible. However, Pridi did not live long enough for a regime to come to power that would allow him to return to Thailand; he died in exile in France in 1983. Only in the late 1990s would Pridi finally be recognized for the profound role he played in shaping contemporary Thailand.

With the coming of the Cold War, the West began to look to Thailand as a potential bastion against the rise of communism in Southeast Asia. Thailand sent troops to join the United Nations forces during the Korean War, and in 1954 it became a charter member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a regional anticommunist defense organization to which the United States pledged its support. The establishment of a communist regime in China in 1949 caused Phibunsongkhram to fear the spread of communism within Thailand, and he carried out a series of measures directed against members of the Chinese community. In addition, he imprisoned leaders from other groups whom he feared might try to secede from Thailand, in particular the Lao in the northeast and the Malays in the south.

Between 1951 and 1957 the United States poured huge amounts of economic and military aid into Thailand to fortify the country’s infrastructure and boost its military and police forces. This massive financial support laid the foundation for an economic boom in Thailand that continued almost steadily until the late 1990s. Access to these funds rendered the military largely independent of the political process. An alliance of convenience developed between the military rulers—headed by Phibunsongkhram and the newly emerging army chief, Sarit Thanarat—and the police, in which the latter suppressed the government’s political opponents in return for a share of the political spoils.

Sarit was entrusted by Phibunsongkhram with building up and modernizing the Thai army, and by 1954 he had risen to the rank of field marshal. Sarit became heavily involved in business activities and served on numerous corporate boards, as did a number of other upper-echelon military officials during that period. Under the Phibunsongkhram government, most of the country’s small number of manufacturing firms were government-owned, while imports and exports were tightly controlled. Sarit and many members of the middle class, particularly businessmen of Chinese descent, quickly became disappointed by the poor economic results of Phibunsongkhram’s policy of economic nationalism. Public confidence in the Phibunsongkhram regime waned during the next three years, and in September 1957 Sarit staged a coup and took over the government.

Military dictatorship, economic growth, and the reemergence of the monarchy

Sarit remained in power from 1958 until his death in 1963. Throughout those years, he concentrated on instituting new economic policies that favoured both domestic and foreign private investment. His commitment to economic development, coupled with a massive rise in foreign economic and military aid to Thailand (especially from the United States), led to strong growth in Thailand’s gross national product. Not only were large amounts of money funneled into the military, but there was also a major increase in the number of infrastructure investments, and many new highways, irrigation projects, electrification schemes, and schools were built. Sarit, seeking the legitimacy of the throne, also encouraged Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had succeeded his brother as king in 1946, to make the public more aware of the monarchy. The king and queen made frequent trips around the country and sponsored numerous public service activities throughout the period of Sarit’s rule, and by 1960 they had become widely known and popular throughout the land. The monarchy, which had been in eclipse since 1932, once again became a significant institution in Thailand.

Sarit was admired by many as a strong and decisive ruler, but his popularity diminished significantly after his death, when the extent of his personal corruption became widely known. The aura of corruption haunted his successors, Thanom Kittikachorn and Praphas Charusathian, who jointly held power throughout the decade following Sarit’s death. Their rule was, nonetheless, also characterized by the continuing growth of the Thai economy. During the 1960s, Thailand became increasingly involved with the United States in the Vietnam War. By 1969, Thailand had more than 11,000 troops serving in Vietnam, and throughout the conflict it was a staging base for the U.S. Air Force. Huge sums of American money continued to pour into Thailand throughout the Thanom-Praphas years, stimulating economic development but also contributing substantially to the growth of corruption and a rising gap in the standard of living between rich and poor. Popular disaffection grew, particularly in the impoverished northeast and among alienated groups such as the Muslim Malays in the south and the Hmong in the far north, gradually crystallizing into outright insurgency.

The 1973 revolution and its aftermath

Faced with growing internal dissent, Thanom made half-hearted attempts to introduce minor democratic reforms before reimposing direct military rule in 1971. For many Thai, especially the growing number of middle-class citizens educated abroad and exposed to Western democratic ideas, this undermined their vision of the country’s future. Students in particular felt betrayed and held huge public demonstrations calling for the promulgation of a constitution. Violence between police and students escalated, culminating on October 14, 1973, when government forces killed more than a hundred protestors. The army’s commander, Gen. Kris Sivara, subsequently refused to use additional force, and Thanom and Praphas acceded to the urging of the king to go into exile. Most Thai today consider October 14, 1973, to be an even more important date than June 24, 1932, the date of the coup that ended the absolute authority of Thailand’s monarchy.

For the first time since 1932, the monarchy assumed a direct role in Thai politics. The king chose Judge Sanya Dharmasakti, a former rector of Thammasat University, to be interim prime minister and to oversee the drafting of a new constitution. The constitution, promulgated in 1974, ushered in a brief period of parliamentary democracy in Thailand. Ranking members of the military, however, interpreted the open policy debates in the parliament as an indication of political instability, and the triumph of communist governments in Vietnam, Cambodia (called Kampuchea in 1979–89), and Laos in 1975 was perceived as a threat requiring a stronger Thai government. In October 1976 the military, this time with the backing of the king, again took control of the government, and it abolished both the parliament and the constitution.

The new coup polarized the country politically. Many students who had led or supported the movement of the early 1970s went into the jungle to join what had previously been a small rural-based communist insurgency. By mid-1977 the Communist Party of Thailand was beginning to mount an increasingly effective challenge to the military-backed government. Fearing increasing unrest, the military leaders—in yet another October coup—ousted the extreme right-wing government they had installed a year earlier and handed power over to Gen. Kriangsak Chomanand, who was open to a more democratic style of government.

Partial democracy and the search for a new political order

By 1980, when Kriangsak was replaced by Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda, Thailand had established a new system of government in which the military shared power with the parliament through the mediation of the monarchy. Prem, who served as prime minister from 1980 to 1988, succeeded in eliminating the challenge of the Communist Party of Thailand and quelled dissent within the country by declaring a general amnesty for all previous insurgents. However, Thailand faced a new external threat along its eastern border following the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in 1979. As one consequence of that occupation, Thailand found itself forced to shelter a growing number of Southeast Asian refugees, arriving primarily from Cambodia. In 1988 Prem was replaced as prime minister by Chatichai Choonhavan, leader of the Chat Thai political group, which had won the greatest number of seats in parliamentary elections held in July. Thus, for the first time since 1976, Thailand had a government headed by an elected, rather than a military, leader. The supremacy of the parliament over the military, however, had not been firmly established.

In February 1991 Chatichai’s government, already criticized for rampant corruption, went too far in challenging the military and was toppled by a junta calling itself the National Peacekeeping Council. Although nominally led by Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong, another powerful leader of the junta was army chief Suchinda Kraprayoon. The junta promised elections and, as an indication of this commitment, appointed the politically liberal Anand Punyarachun, a former diplomat and business leader, as prime minister. Anand sought to remain independent of the military. After elections were held in March 1992, General Suchinda, who had not himself stood for election, reneged on his promise not to seek the premiership. A coalition of groups, drawn predominantly from the urban middle class, began to stage large-scale protests after he became prime minister in April. Chamlong Srimuang—who also was a former army general, as well as a former mayor of Bangkok and the leading lay supporter of a Buddhist fundamentalist movement—assumed the leadership of these protests. In May the army met the escalating antigovernment demonstrations with bloody repression. The king intervened and called Suchinda and Chamlong to an audience, after which Suchinda resigned. Anand was recalled by the king to head a caretaker government until new elections could be held in September 1992.

These elections ushered in what became the most democratic period in Thai history. Between September 1992 and April 2006 all governments were formed by parties commanding a majority in the parliament. Although no single party gained an absolute majority in the elections held in 1992, 1995, and 1996, the Democrat Party, the oldest political party in Thailand, has been the most successful of any in putting together coalitions to form governments. Chuan Leekpai, the leader of the Democrats, headed governments between 1992 and 1995 and again between 1997 and 2001. However, his governments were not fully stable, and in the period between 1995 and 1997 there were two elections and two other prime ministers. One of them, Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, faced one of the most serious economic crises in Thailand’s postwar history, set off by the devaluation of the baht in July 1997.

The economic crisis provided a strong impetus for the completion of a new constitution, the drafting of which had been initiated in the aftermath of the crisis of 1992. In October 1997 King Bhumibol signed the new constitution, which recognized broader rights for the citizenry than any of the country’s 15 previous constitutions had. Conservative elements in the military and bureaucracy and their allies in the parliament had sought to ensure that the new constitution protected some of their privileges, but the severe economic crisis that took place that year undermined their efforts.

The 1997 constitution showed the degree to which a new civil society was emerging in Thailand. It also reflected the influence of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that had proliferated in Thailand since the 1980s. Promoting the interests of such groups as farmers, environmentalists, urban labourers, ethnic and religious minorities, and people afflicted with AIDS, these NGOs drew their membership primarily from the same educated middle-class people who had joined the student movements of the 1970s and had succeeded in challenging military rule in May 1992. NGOs also attracted significant backing from many newspapers and magazines and from academics. Although the organizations were initially viewed with suspicion by Thai governments—and especially by ranking members of the civil service and the military—the country’s parliamentary-based governments since 1992 have been forced to recognize the influence of NGOs on Thai politics.