Fighting for Virtue

Fighting for Virtue investigates how Thailand's judges were tasked by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) in 2006 with helping to solve the country's intractable political problems--and what happened next. Across the last decade of Rama IX's rule, Duncan McCargo examines the world of Thai judges: how they were recruited, trained, and promoted, and how they were socialized into a conservative world view that emphasized the proximity between the judiciary and the monarchy.

McCargo delves into three pivotal freedom of expression cases that illuminate Thai legal and cultural understandings of sedition and treason, before examining the ways in which accusations of disloyalty made against controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to occupy a central place in the political life of a deeply polarized nation. The author navigates the highly contentious role of the Constitutional Court as a key player in overseeing and regulating Thailand's political order before concluding with reflections on the significance of the Bhumibol era of judicialization in Thailand. In the end, posits McCargo, under a new king, who appears far less reluctant to assert his own power and authority, the Thai courts may now assume somewhat less significance as a tool of the monarchical network.

"Offers an analysis of the recent era of "judicialization," using close scrutiny of some key trials to explain how and why Thailand's judges proved unable to resolve the country's longstanding political crisis, despite their royal mandate to do so"--
Duncan McCargo is Professor of Southeast Asian Politics at the University of Leeds. He is the author of Chamlong Srimuang and the New Thai Politics, Politics and the Press in Thailand, Media and Politics in Pacific Asia, coauthor of The Thaksinization of Thailand, and editor of Rethinking Thailand's Southern Violence.

Fighting for Virtue makes an original contribution to critical debates about the rule of law in Southeast Asia. It will be an essential point of reference for anyone interested in understanding the morbid politics of the final decade of King Bhumibol's reign. For both these reasons, it deserves to be read widely.

-- "contemporary southeast asia"

This is an original, heavily researched, fascinating, highly readable, and ultimately frightening book.

-- "Bangkok Post"