2

What all has to happen in post-2023 election Thailand before it can have a new prime minister? has 102 views, +0/-0 votes and has had a +200 bounty for four days already (I'd also given it a +100 bounty previously). Except for mine, there's not even a single comment. I fear it's in roomba territory.

Without any feedback whatsoever there, I thought I'd ask here - is the question so uninteresting that not only nobody is interested in answering, nobody is even interested in leaving a comment, not even a disparaging one?

While Will Prayut still be Thailand's Minister of Defence if/when a new government is formed (2023) and (presumably a new) prime minister selected I also suspect that if a similar question was asked in the context of the UK informed and well-received answers would have appeared faster than the close votes and ultimately, seeing those well-informed answers, the question would have survived.

I'm not complaining, I'm just curious!

Why do my questions about a potentially historic transition from military dictatorship to a democracy via peaceful popular elections receive so little attention and remain fully unanswered? Is this simply uninteresting to this community?

1
  • 1
    In my opinion: Thai politics is an uneasy subject for Westerners. On the one hand Thailand is a Western ally and a popular Western tourist spot. On the other hand, Thailand has a fairly useless king these days, is run by a military junta and has a history of having flawed elections. Media coverage is thus fairy muted: few Western media outlets bother dissecting in detail what would elicit negative coverage if it was an "anti-West" country. One could even drag in a bit of Manufacturing Consent if one were so minded.
    – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 20:17

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

It's likely because we have few Thai experts, and it's tricky for non-Thai experts to get a definitive answer on Thai politics.

A large number of answers rely on sources easily accessible on the internet, either because the government in question provided documents that answer those questions, or because a robust media ecosystem had the same questions and answered them. Most of the people on Politics SE are from a western background*, so just as a baseline it's less likely you'll find people on here who 1) know Thai history and current politics, 2) can provide nuance on translations of Thai documents, and 3) care enough about 1 and 2 to provide an answer here.

As an example, prior to a certain question I had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the intricacies on Canadian dairy politics. However, after hours of searching various official government sites and reading official government documents I was able to put together an answer that was accepted by the person who asked a question about milk quotas. This all relies on a lot of tech-savvy bureaucrats who understand the modern internet ecosystem, and are willing to make explanations of government policies available to anyone who cares.

This sort of straightforward investigation simply can't happen for a lot of governments: they don't have good resources, either because they're too old-fashioned to make their policies easily accessible, too corrupt/militaristic to want to make their policies easily understandable, or too foreign for a lot of Politics SE users to care to enough get involved with.

I obviously can't speak for everyone who didn't answer questions about Thailand, but I have difficulty answering questions about a country which is (relatively) small on the world stage and which many political questions revolve around what the military** will do.

*Just a guess, based on my own experience as an American and the content of the rest of StackExchange

**The linked questions has a quote saying "The Royal Thai Armed Forces pledged to respect the results of the general election and not launch a coup."

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .