The The “Specter” of Thought: Nitirat, Future Forward Party, and the Construction of the Politics of Hope

Abstract

This paper presents a picture of the contesting of thought between two lawyer groups: the progressive democrats, “Nitirat” group and the elitist conservative group, called by the media as “legal service boy.” The analysis utilized the hegemony concept of Antonio Gramsci, which explains that every society has its intellectual class. The hegemony of the society is always supported by the intellectuals, so the intellectuals are an important part in the hegemony. Gramsci divided the intellectuals and class consciousness in political struggle into two groups: Traditional Intellectuals who connect to the political elites, and Organic Intellectuals who connect to the interests of the lower class. Next, the power/knowledge concept of Michel Foucault, which explains that power is not institution or structure, but a complex situation of strategic contestation in society or the variety and complexity of force relations. Power creates social truth. Power produces knowledge. Knowledge and power are directly imply on one another. The hypothesis is that law is the space for the contesting of thought to seize the definition of democracy as constructing the politics of hope. The following two issues presented here are: (1) the formation of the Nitirat group, and (2) competition for the meaning of democracy. The findings are: First, the Nitirat group was formed to oppose the use of law not conforming to the legal doctrine. Second, in competing to define democracy, the Nitirat group insisted that the constitution must be derived from the power of the people and with the essence of reforming the principal political institutions: the monarch should be under the constitution, the courts must be connected to the people’s power, and the army should not be allowed to stage a coup. Such ideas in the view of the elites of the conservative are like those of “specter” “haunting” and bringing changes. When the Future Forward Party pushed the Parliament to amend the constitution, it was intercepted by assaulting Nitirat’s leaders or using various forms of legal measure against the party to dissolve it by the decision of the Constitutional Court. However, they did not surrender, but still proceed their roles in both national and local level in the name of the Move Forward Party and the Progressive Movement. Thus, the move of Nitirat’s thought by the Future Forward Party was powerfully formed again of the democrats since the great political change of 1932.