Political Divinations: Making Citizens Sovereign in Buddhist Thailand (book launch)

In Thailand, diviners have long been discreet companions of power. Kings once relied on royal astrologers to consolidate their rule within a Buddhist cosmological order. Since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, divinatory knowledge previously guarded within palace walls has gradually spread across society.

Today, astrologers, palmists, and tarot readers counsel clients of all backgrounds, from students anxious about exams to couples weighing the prospects of marriage. They advise political actors too, from army generals seeking auspicious dates for coups d’état to pro-democracy protesters envisaging alternative political futures.

Despite their pervasive influence, diviners are rarely taken seriously as political actors in the scholarship on Thailand. In this talk, Edoardo Siani presents his new book, Political Divinations: making Citizens Sovereign in Buddhist Thailand (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2026). Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, during which he also trained and practiced as a diviner, Siani moves between Bangkok’s nocturnal fortune-telling markets and the elite circles where renowned seers serve the powerful. Bridging religious and political anthropology, he approaches divination as a ritual technology of sovereignty—one that both underwrites authority and provides the means to contest it. He ultimately shows how cosmological notions associated with Buddhist kingship have become key resources through which ordinary people claim sovereignty for themselves.

Speaker & chair biographies

Dr. Edoardo Siani is Associate Professor of Southeast Asian studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, research associate at the SOAS Centre of South East Asian Studies, and book review editor of South East Asia Research. He received his PhD in anthropology and sociology from SOAS University of London, during which time he also taught at Thammasat University, and was later a postdoctoral researcher and assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. His book, Political Divinations, was first published in Thai as โหราประชาธิปไตย (Horaprachathipatai) by Matichon. It became a non-fiction bestseller at the 2026 National Book Fair in Bangkok.

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 a researcher and Centre Manager at the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the LSE. Her research focuses on authoritarianism, democracy, and promotional politics, with a particular expertise on Thailand.

*Banner photo by sippakorn yamkasikorn on Unsplash

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