An academic has urged researchers to avoid making submissions to the National University of Singapore (NUS) Press after it canceled his contract to publish a book that was critical of the Thai monarchy.
Coup, King, Crisis: A Critical Interregnum in Thailand, edited by Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a prominent overseas Thai critic, is a collection that examines Thailand’s political transition from 2014 to 2019, through a series of essays by 14 Asian studies scholars.
It had been due to be published by NUS Press, but the publisher reversed course in March 2020. Criticism of the monarchy is illegal in Thailand because of lèse-majesté laws.
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More than a hundred scholars and academics have signed an open letter accusing the National University of Singapore (NUS) Press of bowing to political pressure after it last year withdrew abruptly from publication of a volume of essays touching on sensitive aspects of Thai politics.
The book, “Coup, King, Crisis: A Critical Interregnum in Thailand,” was edited by the scholar Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a long-time critic of the Thai ruling establishment who has been living in exile in Japan since shortly after the military coup of May 2014.
The essays in the book, which has since been published as part of Yale University’s Southeast Asia Studies Monograph series, cast a critical eye on the period between the coup and the flawed election of March 2019. In particularly, it examines the sensitive royal transition from King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016 after 70 years on the throne, to his son Vajiralongkorn – an issue that can’t be openly discussed within T
In this critical moment, the key players in Thailand’s prior political system are trying to block any transition. Meanwhile, the protest movement that has built in the streets in Thailand in recent months is calling for constitutional changes and reforms to strengthen democracy and questioning the power of the king. This protest movement has broken the taboo of openly discussing and even criticizing the monarchy, and the current government has struck back by reviving the use of the lèse-majesté law and arresting multiple protest leaders.
Meanwhile, the new monarch lacks the moral authority that his father, Bhumibhol, amassed during his decades-long reign, which made him genuinely popular and respected among many Thais.