Systemic Vulnerability. By the time Sarit gained power, Southeast Asia was already a key hot-spot in the global cold war. With communist China so near and violent communist struggles going on in neighboring Xxxxx, Xxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxx, xxx Xxxx, Xxxxxxxx faced a credible threat along most of its borders. This threat did not diminish greatly over the lifespan of the military government. The budgetary demands created by this threat were alleviated by access to agriculture export revenues and especially to US military aid. Washington quickly judged Xxxxx as an avid anti-communist and someone they could work with, and funding flowed freely. There was a substantial Maoist guerrilla network operating in Thailand’s rural areas. Made up of farmers and minorities, many of whom resented the intrusive expansion of the central government, these rebels moved to open hostilities in 1965 that reached a peak in 1977 (Pasuk & Xxxxx, 2004). Though Sarit and much of the military came from rural areas, the junta was not directly dependent on the rural peoples for continued power and felt limited pressure to consider their concerns when making policy. Massive Bangkok student demonstrations began in 1968 and increased in organization and intensity in the early 1970s but the junta was likewise willing to give only minimal attention their demands. As such, the government did not face the pressure of dividing resources between the country’s defense and appeasing a broad coalition of interests. The unified military period was a case with a single, non-alternating veto player that had a moderate level of systemic vulnerability. Based on the framework developed in the second chapter, we should expect the single veto player to be unhindered by political institutions from maximizing wealth by implementing a particularistic policy platform. However, the constraints posed by moderate systemic vulnerability should provide some limits on both the particularism and the volatility of policy. As such, we should expect to see a mix of hierarchical and coordinated economic governance institutions.
