Independent from Civilian Control: Military Power in Thailand in 2025
2025 was a watershed year for civil-military relations in Thailand. The military, which suffered a tarnished reputation during 2014-2023 owing to its political domination over that period, suddenly gained new popularity, which facilitated more military interventions in civilian decision-making.
The Anutin Charnvirakul government which came to office in September 2025 thoroughly acquiesced in military autonomy from civilian control. Amidst a lack of effective civilian control, Thailand has reverted back to an entrenched “state of exception” in a frail democracy variously described as “tutelary” or “royalist”. Brian Loveman refers in greater detail to authoritarian-dominated “protected democracy,” which “is premised on the notion that people must be protected from themselves and from organizations that might subvert the existing political order.” Thailand’s “protected democracy” has always comprised regimes of exception and constitutions of exception as of 2025. To what extent might Thailand in 2025 be understood as a “protected democracy?” To what extent has authoritarianism evolved in Thailand? What might be the future of Thai civil-military relations? The lecture addresses these questions. It contends that in 2025 Thailand’s royal-dominant state has bolstered itself through an asymmetrical partnership with the military, overshadowing efforts at civilian control which at most have produced protected democracy.
Speaker & chair biographies
Dr. Paul Chambers (pwchambers@gmail.com) is currently a Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusuf Ishak Institute in Singapore, the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance, and the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. He is also the executive editor of the Taylor & Francis (Scopus) journal Asian Affairs: An American Review. Paul has authored co-authored, or edited over 100 publications, including journal articles, book chapters and six books. Recent publications include his co-edited book Khaki Capital: The Political Economy of the Military in Southeast Asia (NIAS, 2017) and Praetorian Kingdom: A History of Military Ascendancy in Thailand (ISEAS Publishing, 2024). His research centers upon comparative politics, democratization, civil-military relations, and international affairs in Southeast Asia, specifically Thailand and Cambodia. In 2025, Paul was wrongfully detained, dismissed from his employment at Naresuan University, and effectively deported for insulting Thailand’s monarchy.
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Dr. Petra Alderman is Manager of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and researcher with a notable country expertise on Thailand. She is the author of Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand (Routledge, 2023) and of articles in various disciplinary and area studies journals such as International Political Science Review, Geopolitics, Politics, and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs.
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