Religion, political parties, and Thailand’s 2019 election: Cosmopolitan royalism and its rivals

Abstract The political salience of religious issues and identities has been rising in Thailand, this is increasingly reflected electoral politics. Thai parties seek to position themselves relation struggles over the location ideological centre gravity, which pitted defenders religio-political status quo—a monarchy-centred civil-religious nationalism—against Buddhist nationalists, on one hand, proponents greater secularization, other. In 2019 general election, entrepreneurs ‘particized’ these differences, far-reaching implications for majority-minority relations, an extent that appears unprecedented recent history. This argument developed through analysis platforms, policies, rhetoric put forward by contesting concluded almost five-year period direct military rule. suggests we need pay attention role competition maintaining secular settlement Thailand.