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In 1997, the Assembly of the Poor (AOP) successfully organised a 99-day protest, which was widely hailed as ‘a historical moment’ for people's politics in Thailand. However, following the creation of the first Thai Rak Thai government in 2001, the AOP's political role has gradually declined. This thesis aims to investigate the factors behind the AOP's decline between 2001 and 2010. It argues that, because of inherent internal weaknesses and the recent political changes, the development of AOP in the 2000s has increasingly been influenced, if not determined, by external factors. First, the thesis re-examines the movement's internal elements in a more critical view, which evidently contrasts with early writings on the AOP. It argues that some of the AOP's key features, such as its loose structure, are partially to blame for the movement's decline. NGO activists’ roles in the movement are also critically reassessed. More importantly, the thesis also systematically explores the external elements, known as the political opportunity structure (POS), which have increasingly influenced the AOP's development and mobilisation. This approach has been overlooked by most literature written on the movement. The study emphasises two sets of elements of the POS: stable and volatile components. As for stable elements, which are structurally embedded, the list includes the cultural structure, institutional structure, and prevailing strategies. These elements have impeded, not only the AOP, but also other people's movements for decades. On the other hand, the two influential volatile elements for the AOP during this period are the elite divisions and media access. During the Thaksin government, his control over the elites significantly restricted the AOP's campaigns, while the lack of media access had adverse impacts on the movement during this highly polarised period.

The People’s Party (Khana ratsadon) or the monarchy: which one is the true begetter of Thai democracy? The people or the King: who possesses sovereign power in Thailand? The thesis Revolution versus Counter-Revolution: The People’s Party and the Royalist(s) in Visual Dialogue explores these core questions of Thai politics through an examination of the dynamism of the People’s Party’s visual culture. Under a royalist hegemony, started in 1947, the People’s Party’s arts and cultural artefacts have been recast as foreign and tasteless. This thesis argues that this royalist accusation highlights the profound significance of the revolutionary visual culture. In fact the People’s Party’s memorials, monuments, architecture and artwork are deeply embedded within a struggle for political legitimisation. They are “sites of memory”, or lieux de mémoire, that take on a performative role in the rivalry between the two ideologies: constitutionalism/democracy and royalism. Between 1932 and 2010 through a series of political incidents they have undergone a series of transformations both in the way they are interpreted and the cultural memory associated with them. This thesis intends to unravel the complexity and web of associations between these cultural icons, political ideologies, class struggle and memory politics.

Since the early 1990s, the prominent role of 'Octobrists' – former left wing student activists from the 1970s – has become increasingly evident in parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics. Some Octobrists have played leading or supporting roles in key moments of political transition, such as the 1992 urban middle-class movement for democracy, various social movements throughout the mid-1990s, the political reform process of the late 1990s, and the rise of the Thais Love Thais (Thai Rak Thai) government under Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001. But over the course of the past ten years, these former student activists have become increasingly divided, amidst the protracted conflict between 'Yellow shirt' (anti-Thaksin) and 'Red Shirt' (pro-Thaksin) forces in Thai politics. Octobrists have defended opposing political stances and severely attacked one another across the political divide. This thesis examines why the Octobrists have managed to remain a significant force in Thai politics, despite the collapse of left wing politics in the late 1970s, and why they have experienced deepening internal divisions and a crisis of legitimacy over the course of the past decade. This thesis argues that the Octobrists successfully exploited shifts in the structure of political opportunities over the 1980s and 1990s which allowed them to overcome constraints on their involvement in politics. These former left wing student activists successfully made use of the political skills, social networks, and progressive language which they had developed and refined since the 1970s, in order to gain access to new channels of political influence and power. Above all, they managed to reframe their earlier history as leftist failures and to craft a new political identity as 'Octobrists', as heroic fighters for democracy and against authoritarian rule in the 1970s. In examining the rise and deepening of conflicts among the Octobrists, moreover, this thesis traces the shifts in political environment which accompanied the ascendancy and entrenchment of the Thaksin government and the rise of antiThaksin mobilisation over the past decade, which undermined the loose unity among Octobrists and created new sources of tension and conflict in their midst. The thesis also shows how the notion of 'Octobrists' shifted from an effective rubric for forging a shared identity among former student activists to a rhetorical device for conflict and contestation among former comrades-in-arms.

This thesis seeks to evaluate the progress of regional community building in Southeast Asia, which has been undertaken by the Association of Southeast Asians (ASEAN). The thesis analyses the extent to which there has been a shift from policies and processes associated with “old regionalism” (state-security-economic centred regionalism) towards those which are associated with “new regionalism” and a regional community (the widening of regionalism to non-state actors, and expansion of regional cooperation into new areas, and regional solidarity). The first half of the thesis demonstrates the persistence of “old regionalism,” based on a tendency to differentiate others as an external security threat in Thailand's bilateral relations. This tendency is driven by a deeply embedded historical legacy of differentiation, which is pursued by state actors for domestic political interests, as well as on-going bilateral disputes, and a militarised border. The second half of the thesis tests the significance of “new regionalism,” based on three case studies on civil society participation in regional community building. These case studies demonstrate how “new regionalism” is significant in form, rather than in substance, and how progress in community building is mainly driven by the more democratic ASEAN member states. Visible progress in community building includes the emergence of ASEAN-CSO meetings, an ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), and a transnational civil society network (TCSN), which is increasing society's regional awareness and society's participation in regionalism. However, substantive progress is lacking, due to the region's political diversity and the prioritization of regional unity over the realization of a people-oriented ASEAN Community. Thus, ASEAN community building is empty in substance, due to the continuation of politically motivated differentiation and border insecurity, symbolic meetings between states and CSOs, a powerless regional human rights body, and the remaining gap between regional declarations and policy implementation.