Right-Wing Social Movements and Civic Terror Construction: A Case Study of the Enforcement of Lèse-Majesté in Contemporary Thai Political Conflict

Abstract

This article examines the right-wing movement which, in the past decade of Thai political conflict, has raised the supposedly justified flag of “to Protect the Monarchy” discourses. These discourses serve as a counter-movement against the radically wised-up Red Shirt’s masses, which has generated critical expressions towards the role of the Monarchy in varying degrees. Consequently, some established groups joined in their attempts to retaliate and stop the growth of their common oppositions. This movement deploys the rhetoric of fear, threat and enforcement of lèse-majesté law including social sanctions as political suppression tools. Also, herein, the social movement concept considerably suggests that a movement can go beyond a simple opposition to the state. Rather, it can become a mechanism to support the state apparatus to help spreading fear to its broader society.