Civil Societies based on Clientship: A Challenge to Democracy?

Bernard Formoso (1)

1 IrAsia - Institut de recherches Asiatiques

The paper challenges some preconceptions about clientship as a normative pattern which prompt individuals to build vertical relationships in Buddhist societies of Southeast Asia. I shall compare two national contexts, namely Thailand and Cambodia. Their respective cultures share basically the same concepts and values concerning the regime of obligations that the patron and his clients should respect. However, the sharply contrastive evolution of these countries regarding the configuration of their civil society and the state management of popular contestation reveals that patron-clientelism as a basic bond system may accommodate a wide range of political forms and civic spaces. Against a current opinion, it is not an impediment to civic struggles and to local claim for an original path to democratization.

Mots clés: civil society; Thailand; clientship

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Bernard Formoso. Civil Societies based on Clientship: A Challenge to Democracy?. Sunait Chutintaranond, Ukrist Pathmanand, Vinissa Ujjin. Catching Up Southeast Asian New Body: States, Markets, and Public Spheres, 2014, 978-616-551-820-8. ⟨hal-01413826⟩