Dr. Patcharaviral Charoenpacharaporn

Cold War Historian (Chulalongkorn University)

”As someone who was born in 1992, not long after the events of Black May, which were a bunch of protests that happened in Bangkok against the military government of the time, the Cold War was the time when having a military government became a norm in the Thai domestic politics.
As the influence of the United States loomed large over the Thai domestic landscape, many of the attempts to limit the expansion of communism in the region, in the country, led to subsequent military coup d’etats that produced strong men in the politics who would secure the partnership with the West as well as its anti-communist policy, but that also weakened the prospect of democracy that could have thrived there.”