• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.53-94
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• 2017

Thai political regime is said to have returned to bureaucratic polity or semi-democracy. However this kind of perspective do not find the political interference of Privy Council which is a body of Monarch of Thailand. Therefore this paper tries to discover the unique traits of Thai way of constitutional monarchy which can be defined as the modern form of absolute monarchy. In short Thai way of constitutional monarchy based on network politics is contradictary to the normal constitutional monarchy whose norm is "the king reigns, but does not rule." This means Thai king is in politics not above politics in reality. Thai monarchy has interfered in diversive way in terms of mediating political conflicts and protecting the monarchy as a institution. In this process the king has been worshiped as demigod who practises the Buddhist doctrine and the centre of national integration. Even after the 6 Ocober 1976 massacre which the palace involved King Bhumibol Adulyadej's sacred position was not challenged. Rather $l{\grave{e}}se-majest{\acute{e}}$ law became more draconian for status quo. Since then $l{\grave{e}}se-majest{\acute{e}}$ was cited as one of the major rationale for the military coup. The 2006 coup which was triggered by the clash between network Monarchy and bourgeois polity based on Thakin network marked a surge of the $l{\grave{e}}se-majest{\acute{e}}$ cases. The 2014 coup had consecutively increased the number of $l{\grave{e}}se-majest{\acute{e}}$ prisoners. It can be said that the modern form of absolute monarchy in Thailand including bureaucratic polity, semi-democracy and democracy is bounded by $l{\grave{e}}se-majest{\acute{e}}$ law which network monarchy players such as military, intellectuals, Democrat Party and even some civil society groups support.