Description

Nearly 4000 people have died since 2004 in a violent conflict affecting Thailand’s Malay-majority southern border provinces. Offering some form of autonomy or substantive decentralization to this troubled region might seem like an obvious response to the violence, but the topic has remained largely taboo until recently. Autonomy is seen by Bangkok as the thin end of the wedge, which could prefigure an unravelling of the unitary state crafted during the time of King Chulalongkorn. Nevertheless, in recent years a number of senior figures from different positions in Thai society have voiced support for alternative governance arrangements for the deep South. This presentation will argue that despite the controversial nature of such proposals, there is a slowly emerging consensus around the need for a political solution to the conflict.

Duncan McCargo is professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds, UK. McCargo is best known for his critical writings on the politics of Thailand. His most recent books are Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence (edited, NUS Press 2007) and Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (Cornell 2008), which won the inaugural 2009 Bernard Schwartz Book Prize awarded by the Asia Society.