South East Asia Research, 21, 1, pp 69–103 doi: 10.5367/sear.2013.0140 The King and Banharn Towards an elaboration of network monarchy in Thailand Yoshinori Nishizaki Abstract: Duncan McCargo’s influential model of ‘network monarchy’ ena- bles us to understand how King Bhumibol Adulyadej has mobilized his nationwide patronage network to shape contemporary Thai politics. This model, however, focuses mainly on the conflicts between reform-minded virtuous leaders (represented by Bhumibol) and unprincipled, self-serving politicians, and pays insufficient empirical attention to the porous boundaries between the two. The author makes up for this weakness by unravelling the historical process through which Bhumibol has developed a symbiotic, if ambiguous, relationship with Banharn Silpa-archa, regarded as the epitome of unscrupulous rural-based politicians. The author shows that the two have used each other for their re- spective political purposes. In an effort to protect and advance his personal and dynastic interests, Bhumibol has found it necessary and expedient to rely on Banharn as a valuable political ally. Banharn, for his part, has relied on the king and his proxies to legitimate and consolidate his authority at the local level. By casting light on this interdependence between the two seemingly con- trasting types of leader, the paper contributes to a further elaboration of McCargo’s model and, more generally, to a deeper understanding of the com- plexity of Thailand’s patronage politics. Keywords: network monarchy; patronage; King Bhumibol; Banharn Silpa- archa; Thailand Author details: Dr Yoshinori Nishizaki is an Assistant Professor in the Depart- ment of Political Science, AS1#04-13, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117573. E-mail: polyn@nus.edu.sg. Thai politics, marked in recent decades by coups, protests, corruption scandals, murders, elections, reforms, insurgency and the like, has defied neat theorizing or modelling by social scientists. Fred Riggs’s once-influential concept of ‘bureau- cratic polity’ no longer fits contemporary Thailand, where the rise of elected politicians, social movements, non-governmental organizations and so on has eclipsed the dominance of the bureaucracy, both civilian and military. 1 By gener- ating the ‘liberal corporatist’ model, Anek Laothamatas challenged Riggs, but his model, focused narrowly on the formal dimension of Thailand’s economic policy making, has had little lasting impact. 2 The field of Thai studies has long been in 1 Fred Riggs (1966), Thailand: The Modernisation of a Bureaucratic Polity, East–West Centre Press, Honolulu, Hawaii. 2 Anek Laothamatas (1992), Business Associations and the New Political Economy of Thailand: From Bureaucratic Polity to Liberal Corporatism, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.