National Reform Discourses of Thailand's National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO.)

Abstract

This research aims to study the structural conditions affecting the construction of discourse and to study the consequences after the construction of the discourse on political reform of the country by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) by using the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) method combined with Michel Foucault's genealogy and Archaeology of Knowledge methodology to study the structural conditions that influence the production of discourse, in conjunction with the study of discourse according to the approaches of Fairclough and Habermas to reveal the perspective on the consequences in society after the construction of the discourse on political reform of the country by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO.). The study found that there are two structural conditions impacting the construction of discourse: ideological conditions and social conditions. The details are as follows: In the ideological conditions, there are three ideologies: 1. An ideology against representative democracy 2. An ideology of nation, religion, and monarchy 3. A mainstream Thai ideology. In terms of social and political conditions, there are a total of 2 components: 1. Political conflict 2. Efforts to create political legitimacy. The consequences that arise after the construction of the discourse of political reform in the country by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) are the emergence of policies for political reform and the attempt to maintain power over political opponents of the NCPO. Under the findings of the research, it is proposed that in Thai society and politics, there must be a safe space for expressing thoughts and demonstrating political will for everyone in society. Solving problems through strict law enforcement without compromise to control the expression of political will will inevitably lead to dissatisfaction and create rifts among people in society.