The Political Economy of the Agri-Food System in Thailand

Hegemony, Counter-Hegemony, and Co-Optation of Oppositions

Prapimphan Chiengkul

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351974516
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The mainstream agri-food system in Thailand has been shaped to aid capital accumulation by domestic and transnational hegemonic forces, and is currently sustained through hegemonic agri-food production-distribution, governance structures and ideational order. However, sustainable agriculture and land reform movements have to certain extents managed to offer alternatives.

This book adopts a neo-Marxist and Gramscian approach to studying the political economy of the agricultural and food system in Thailand (1990-2014). The author argues that hegemonic forces have many measures to co-opt dissent into hegemonic structures, and that counter-hegemony should be seen as an ongoing process over a long period of time where predominantly counter-hegemonic forces, constrained by political economic structural conditions, may at times retain some hegemonic elements. Contrary to what some academic studies suggest, the author argues that localist-inspired social movements in Thailand are not insular and anti-globalisation. Instead, they are selective in fostering collaborations and globalisation based on values such as sustainability, fairness and partnership.

Providing new perspectives on polarised politics in Thailand, particularly how cross-class alliances can further or frustrate counter-hegemonic movements, the book points to the importance of analysing social movements in relation to established political authority. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Politics and International Relations, Sociology, Development Studies and Asian Studies.

1 An overview of The Political Economy of the Agri-Food System in Thailand

Introduction

Following the hikes in world food prices of 2007 and 2008, there have been renewed interests in agricultural investments as well as growing concerns over food security. Around 2.6 billion out of seven billion people on Earth, or around 37 per cent, rely on agriculture for their livelihood,¹ while 842 million people were unable to meet their dietary energy requirements between 2011 and 2013.² Of these 842 million, 827 million lived in developing regions.³ Moreover, at least 70 per cent of the world’s 1.4 billion poor people reside in rural areas.⁴ These statistics suggest a large proportion of the world population’s dependency on agriculture and rural economies, as well as their vulnerabilities to food insecurity.

Globally, mainstream discourses often use concerns over food security to call for increased investments in the agricultural sector to improve economic efficiency and productivity, such as to reduce labour in the agricultural sector through large-scale mechanised farming and with the help of biotechnology.⁵ Global population growth and rising income levels in developing countries are also often cited in mainstream sources as main causes for global food security concerns.⁶ Portraying food security as mainly a supply–demand issue, however, is only part of the story as statistics have shown that over the last two decades food supplies have grown faster than the population in developing countries, resulting in rising food availability per person.⁷ Unfortunately, food supply availability does not necessarily translate into better food access and utilisation.⁸ Moreover, mainstream focuses on high technologies of large corporations as solutions to global food security also neglect to address growing global concerns over the ecological unsustainability and political-economic inequality associated with how food is being produced. Specifically, some of these concerns include negative environmental and health consequences of industrial agriculture, financial speculations on agri-food commodities, the growth of agro-fuels production, as well as the economic and political power of large transnational agri-businesses.

Given the global importance of agriculture and food, this book’s study of the political economy of the agri-food system in Thailand is very much relevant in the present-day context. In this book, an ‘agri-food system’ is defined as being comprised of the set of activities and relationships that interact to determine what and how much, by what method and for whom food is produced, processed, distributed and consumed.⁹ The mainstream agri-food system is sometimes referred to in this book as the corporate or neo-liberal capitalist agri-food system to emphasise that, under this system, the main organising principle is the market¹⁰ and that it is inseparable from the capitalist system.

Thailand is an interesting case study for many reasons. Thais are usually proud that their country is often referred to as ‘the kitchen of the world’ as it is a major exporter of agri-food products with some powerful transnational agri-businesses. On the other hand, the highly unequal political-economic power relations and ecological unsustainability in the Thai agri-food sector are serious causes to be concerned with. In Thailand, it is difficult to escape news reports, discussions and first-hand observations of problems facing small-scale farmers, as well as stark inequalities between rural and urban areas. Even though the agricultural sector accounted for only 11.46 per cent of Thailand’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009,¹¹ around 44.4 per cent of the total workforce was in the agricultural sector in 2010.¹² Hence, a large share of the population still depends on the agricultural sector (to varying extents) despite its small share in the country’s GDP. Polarised politics in Thailand in recent years also bring to attention the complicated associations between Thai political-economic elites, agrarian development thoughts such as localism and sufficiency, as well as agrarian social movements.

As the following paragraphs elaborate, this book adopts a critical neo-Marxist and Gramsican international political economy theoretical approach to analyse the social, political-economic and ecological ills of the agri-food system in Thailand. Core to this system is an interplay between forces that try to sustain the status quo and forces that seek alternatives to the current agri-food system. Instead of identifying problems as isolated issues, the neo-Marxist and Gramscian approach in this book provides a frame to analyse problems of the agri-food system as having roots in interrelated ideational and material structures, and that transformation of the agri-food system requires extensive changes across local, regional, national, and global scales. In addition, by regarding the agri-food system in Thailand as part of the global agri-food system, it should become more salient as there are factors specific to Thailand as well as factors resulting from a globally interconnected agri-food system that have shaped the current agri-food system in Thailand. This supplements some Thai-centric literature which tends to focus on domestic factors. The following parts of this chapter discuss the objectives, central research questions, main arguments, contribution to knowledge, summary of the theoretical framework, methodology, and chapter outline of this book in greater detail.

Objectives, central research question and main arguments

This book has two main objectives: (1) to provide a critical political-economic study of the local-to-global interconnections and structural problems of the current agri-food system, using a case study of Thailand; and (2) to explore the possibilities that the current agri-food system can be transformed towards more socially and ecologically sustainable paths. With these two objectives in mind, the book asks the central research question: how have hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces shaped the agri-food system in Thailand between 1990–2014? The Gramscian terms ‘hegemonic’ and ‘counter-hegemonic’ are discussed later in this chapter’s summary of the theoretical framework. As the following paragraphs elaborate, this book has four main arguments.

First, this book argues that the mainstream agri-food system in Thailand has been shaped to aid capital accumulation by domestic and transnational hegemonic forces, and is sustained through the maintenance of hegemonic agri-food production–distribution, governance structures and ideational order. Important participants in the maintenance of the status quo often include transnational capital and global governance bodies, large domestic capital, and the Thai state. Hegemonic neo-liberal ideas and practices in the agri-food system in Thailand have also been strengthened by some cultural-political ideologies and practices specific to Thai historical-social context, namely the ‘Sakdina’ (feudal/hierarchical) mentality and patron–client relations.

Second, this book argues that the sustainable agriculture movement’s (SAM) and the land reform movement’s (LRM) counter-hegemonic ideas, production–distribution practices, and governance structures have managed to influence the agri-food system in Thailand and offer alternatives to certain extents. Both the SAM and the LRM are influenced by local, national, as well as global factors. Hence, despite how they mostly operate within local and national boundaries, the SAM and the LRM can more appropriately be seen as part of global counter-hegemonic forces in the agri-food system. Despite some progress, there are still structural problems and limitations which prevent transformational changes of the mainstream agri-food system in Thailand.

Third, this book argues that hegemonic forces have many measures to co-opt dissent, alternative and reformist forces into hegemonic structures. To an extent, such measures have weakened alternative movements. The line between counter-hegemony and co-optation of oppositions is often unclear, but some examples of co-optation include attempts by large agri-businesses to enter organic niche markets and use similar terms as those in the SAM without wanting to radically transform the agri-food system, as well as some conservative forms of Thai localism and rural populist policies implemented by the Thai state.

Fourth, this book argues that counter-hegemony should be seen as a non-linear ongoing process over a long period of time, constrained by political-economic structural conditions, where forces that are predominantly counter-hegemonic may at times retain some hegemonic elements. Counter-hegemonic social movements do not necessarily have to resemble stereotypical images of politicised, structured, and leftist national movements, and one should not be too quick to pass judgments on counter-hegemonic ideas and practices which originated in different social contexts. The threat of co-optation suggests that counter-hegemonic forces should continually refine and develop clear ideas and practices to guard against co-optation. In addition, to implement structural reforms on wider scales and to bring about significant transformations of the mainstream agri-food system, counter-hegemonic movements should challenge not only local, but also national and global hegemonic governance structures.

Contributions to knowledge

This book makes many original empirical and conceptual contributions to knowledge. It brings new empirical information from Thailand into existing literature on the global corporate agri-food system and alternative agrarian movements. The following chapters will explore how there are historical, socio-cultural and political-economic conditions in Thailand which give rise to a unique form of hegemony and counter-hegemony in the agri-food system in Thailand. Empirical discussions of land grabs in Thailand in this book, for example, challenge stereo-typical images of land grabs as large-scale acquisitions of land by suggesting how foreign land grabs can also occur through nominees.

This book also extends neo-Marxist and Gramscian theoretical perspectives in the study of the agri-food system, and suggests the importance of counter-hegemonic struggles at material and ideational levels which are locally as well as globally relevant. Viewing transformative change in the agri-food system as a process over a long period of time challenges agri-food studies from the Marxist tradition which tend to focus on crisis and change. Some authors have discussed hegemonic ideas and co-optations in the corporate agri-food system¹³ but they have not explored the interconnections of ideas, production–distribution practices, and governance structures in the agri-food system to the same extent as this book.

Academic literature on Thai agrarian development and social movements tend to adopt Thai-centric approaches, so this book provides new perspectives by adopting a critical international political economy approach. It provides new perspectives on the practices and discourses of Thai localism and argues that contrary to what some studies suggest, Thai social movements which are partially inspired by localism are not insular and anti-globalisation, but are selective in fostering globalisation based on values such as sustainability, fairness and partnership. However, this does not mean that they are without problems. This book also provides new perspectives on polarised politics in Thailand by pointing out how polarised political discourses tend to reduce discussions on agrarian development to having only two opposing sides and divide social movements. Such simplistic portrayals distract people from structural social and ecological problems of capitalist agriculture, as well as the roles of political-economic elites from both sides of the political conflict in the maintenance of the status quo.

Summary of the theoretical framework

The decision to adopt a critical international political economy (IPE) framework in this book was derived from a critical inductive approach to research where starting points of theoretical generalisations are based on empirical observations, rather than treating theories and assumptions as facts or unambiguous truth.¹⁴ The author had also observed that mainstream neo-classical economic analyses might be inadequate in addressing structural problems of the agri-food system, and that this inadequacy is likely to have political implications. Such observations have led the author to agree with foundational principles of critical IPE in the Coxian tradition, particularly the rejection of the belief that there is a value-free theory.¹⁵ The term ‘critical’ in IPE in this context refers to a kind of analysis that sees existing social orders and their structural inequalities as products of history, and that the role of critical analysis is both to interpret and to help change existing social orders. In other words, to be critical means to have ‘progressive commitment towards emancipation and ...