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Despite global trends towards military reform (Kaldor and Vashee 1997) characterised by processes of professionalisation and democratisation, militaries in Southeast Asia have continued to play prominent roles in domestic politics since September 11. In the Philippines in August 2003 disgruntled junior officers concerned about corruption and incompetence in the armed forces launched a mutiny which, while it was resolved peacefully, highlighted endemic problems. The inability of the Philippine military to subdue Islamic militants in Mindanao without the politically sensitive assistance of the United States further illustrates the limited effectiveness of domestic security in that country. Similarly, in October 2004, the Thai military attracted unwelcome attention when its heavy-handed attempts to quell violence within the majority Muslim population in the southern province of Pattani culminated in the deaths of more than 80 people and severely embarrassed the government of Thaksin Shinawatra. Meanwhile, despite the fact that Indonesia appears to be making a successful transition to democratic rule, it is significant that two of the leading candidates for the presidency — Wiranto, and the eventual winner, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — were both ex-military men and the military continues to govern and profit from many remote regions…

COVID-19 has had tremendous ripple effect upon every sector in the system since its beginning in 2019. Not only the effect of the pandemic itself, but the preventive measures of the government also affected the system, especially the agriculture supply chain widely considered to be the most important part of Thailand. The aims of the research chapter were to investigate and analyse the effects of COVID-19 and government measures towards the fruit supply chain in Thailand, together with reviewing on-season longan as a case study. Consequently, the instrument utilised was the supply chain mapping. The result was collected additionally by in-depth interviews, focus-group interviews, and questionnaires from Thai farmers. As a result, COVID-19 pandemic and preventive measures indicated the entire fruit supply-chain system’s impacts on activities and stakeholders from start to finish nationally and internationally. Besides, the labour markets were affected, particularly seasonal foreign harvesting workers. These effects are in accordance with the agricultural overproduction, farm price and export price decreases, and other export volumes. In case of on-season longan, the shortage of fruit harvesting workers from disease preventive measures, including the prohibition of cross-border travel, were highlighted as significant problems. Additionally, the 14-day quarantine measure lessened the number of brokers, traders, and agricultural workers. These problems put pressure on involved people and changed the consumer behaviour. In sum, the noteworthy results lead to the policy recommendations for the new normal of the marketplace, comprising promoting comprehensive learning and training (reskill, upskill, and new skill) courses for agricultural practices and so forth.

Microfinance has been widely discussed as one of the rural development initiatives to distribute credit and financial services to the rural poor in Thailand since the mid-1970s. In 2013, approximately 67.2% of the country’s 7.3 million poor resided in the rural areas and nearly half of them lived in north-east region. Most of the poor are smallholder farmers who experience poverty and live below the basic standard of living. Thus, they require to access credit to invest in their farming businesses and for household consumption. The demand for short-term credit plays an important role in the rural households’ borrowing that is predominantly supplied by the informal lenders. However, during the past few decades, the proportion of credit from formal financial institutions have grown dramatically to substitute the informal credit in the rural areas. This chapter presents an overview of microfinance in Thailand including the types and characteristics.

Thailand is a rising economy in the South Asia and it has been growing at a considerable rate than it neighbors. The economic growth has been halted by reoccurring natural disasters may it be consistent floods, droughts, earthquakes or Tsunamis. The country being diverse in geographical setting is prone to many natural hazards. The disaster management structure in Thailand is present but lacks in several aspect due to political instability and emphasis on the indigenous knowledge. This chapter tries to explore various aspects of disasters in Thailand in the context of social, economic and framework at the government level.