AAS-IN-ASIA CONFERENCE – Asia in Motion: Heritage and Transformation (17-19 July 2014, Singapore)
KEYNOTE ADDRESS 2
SATURDAY, 19 JULY 2014 | 11:15 AM – 1:00 PM | AUDITORIUM, LEVEL 1, TOWN PLAZA
Inequity, Oligarchy, and Protest:
Reflections on our Time
Pasuk Phongpaichit
Professor, Faculty of Economics,
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Many people have commented on the themes running through the extraordinary wave of popular protest
worldwide over the past decade—especially the role of new media in shaping new constituencies of
discontent, and the role of the city as the stage-set of the theatre of protest. In this talk,
I want to acknowledge the importance of these themes in the protest politics of Southeast Asia, but also
examine what is happening through the lenses of inequity and oligarchy. The most sustained of these
protests in our region have been in my country, Thailand, but there have also been a significant
movement in Malaysia, an extraordinary incident in Singapore, and the rather special case of Myanmar.
Inequities may not be the spur of protest, but they are a major factor in the background. Economic
inequality underlies other inequities—in access to power, distribution of public goods, and human
respect—which often emerge as grievances in the rhetoric of protest. Heightened consciousness of these
inequities is a function of changing public expectations in the course of economic growth and social
change. A tendency to oligarchy persists at many levels of society—a hangover from the traditional era
that is being constantly adapted to new conditions. Claims to political domination based on membership
(e.g., in an aristocracy, military, or bureaucracy) are being superseded by claims based on special qualities
such as wealth and education. Oligarchic structures of domination adapt flexibly to new conditions.
Inequity and oligarchy are intimately linked. The new mass politics has begun to challenge the
mainstream thinking in which inequities are acceptable and oligarchy is normal. For the region’s future in
the post-postcolonial era, this is reason for optimism.
Pasuk Phongpaichit took her PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK. She is Professor at the Faculty of
Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. She has been named a distinguished alumni of Monash
University. She has been visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, University of Kyoto, Griffiths
University Brisbane, University of Washington, and the University of Tokyo. Her first study published,
From Peasant Girls to Bangkok Masseuses in 1980 was a best-seller at the ILO Geneva. With Chris Baker,
she has written: Thailand: Economy and Politics, which won the 1997 national research prize (for the Thai
version), and has been translated into Japanese; Thaksin; A History of Thailand; and Thai Capital after the
1997 Crisis. Their translation of The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen won the A. L. Becker Southeast Asian
Literature in Translation Prize for 2013. With her Chulalongkorn University research team, she has written
on corruption and the illegal economy in Thailand.