As Thailand prepares for elections on July 3, 2011, three puzzles confound observers and have immediate implications for democratic development in that country: 1) How did constitutional reform over a decade ago, in the name of enhancing Thai democracy, actually create the conditions for the military coup that took democracy away? 2) How can both sides in Thailand’s bitter political confrontation claim the mantle of democracy while holding such widely divergent views on what democracy really means? 3) Why do the middle and entrepreneurial classes — whose property rights and economic growth are aided by democratization — generally support Thailand’s “Yellow Shirts,” who have worked most vehemently to undermine the most elemental of democratic concepts – one person, one vote?
 
In this paper, the authors seek to explore these paradoxes in more depth, shedding light on the underpinnings of the current “stability” in Thailand and the prospects for democracy in the country’s future. Understanding how Thailand got here, and where it is going, has critical implications for Thailand, its Southeast Asian neighbors, and the West.