The Effect of Religion and Nationalism on the Politicization of Regional Identity in Northern Thailand

• In Event: Religion and Nationalism in Contemporary Southeast Asia: Historical Legacies, Political Mobilization and Identity Formation

Abstract

The Northern region of Thailand stands at a crossroads of politicization. With the former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra--a northerner, deposed in a coup in 2006, the North has consistently voted for Thaksin's successor parties since. Thailand's political story over the last decade and a half is normally painted in terms of a class struggle, or between groups of elites, but the possibility of regional identities growing in political importance has been largely overlooked. This paper is the first to emerge from a survey of over 1000 inhabitants of Chiangmai, the capital of the former Lanna kingdom that was annexed into what is present-day Thailand in 1884. Since that time, the former Lanna territory has been referred to simply as the Northern region of Thailand and has been exposed to a century of nationalism and administrative (including religious) centralization. The Northern sense of self is evident as soon as one arrives in that region, with a unique language, cuisine, and architecture, but it has perhaps surprisingly never been transformed into a political vehicle. However, last year, just prior to the coup there were reports of small groups calling for separatism. This was quickly stunted by the takeover of the military, but how deep-seated is it? This paper reports on a number of questions designed to understand the nature and extent of the Northern political identity as well as to explain the effect of religion and nationalism on this phenomenon through a combination of traditional survey instruments as well as experimental ones.

Author

• Joel Selway, Brigham Young University