Thailand

This book integrates a range of political elements to offer the reader valuable insights, blending geopolitical and social perspectives and exploring geographical areas largely unexplored by many Arab readers and researchers. It asserts that the concept of the Global South extends beyond its geographical significance, transcending the notion of shared characteristics to encompass the convergence of political processes within these countries, including structural problems and fragile, socially unstable systems. The book focuses on the interactions of social movements and political parties to highlight the shared characteristics of the Global South. It emphasizes that today, only a blurred and fluid boundary exists between institutional and non-institutional politics. It maps the real networks connecting actors, moving beyond the traditional binary of supporter and opponent often used for analysis. It explains the complexity of political interactions in the Global South and their impact on the political system in all its components, including the fact that the state is the target, the sponsor, and the adversary for both sides of the interaction, all in pursuit of their respective demands. It also presents the country of Thailand as an applied study by reviewing the different patterns that the interactions of the Red Shirt and Yellow Shirt movements with various political parties in Thailand have taken since the rise of Thaksin Shinawatra at the beginning of the millennium, the dramatic political changes that have occurred at the macro and micro levels of the political system in Thailand, and the stages of escalating political polarization between rival camps of parties and social movements.