Duncan McCargo
Encyclopedia
Duncan McCargo is a professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds
specializing in Thailand
and Asia
-related topics. He holds three degrees from the University of London
: a First in English (Royal Holloway
1986); then an MA in Area Studies (Southeast Asia
) (1990), and a PhD in Politics (1993) (the later two from the School of Oriental and African Studies
). He has also taught at Queen's University Belfast, and at Kobe Gakuin University
, Japan
; in 2006-07, he was a visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
" was published in a revised form as a 1997 book (which is currently being translated into Thai). Since then McCargo has published several other books on Thailand. These include: Politics and the Press in Thailand (2000), a fieldwork-based study for which he spent a year embedded in the editorial rooms of several leading Thai language newspapers; Reforming Thai Politics (2002) an edited volume which has beocme the standard work on the political reform process of the 1990s, containing chapters by a range of leading Thai and foreign scholars and activists; and The Thaksinization of Thailand, a ground-breaking 2005 analysis of the politics surrounding controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, co-authored with the revisionist political economist Ukrist Pathamanand.
Apart from his nine books – all of which have appeared in paperback – McCargo has published a large number of articles in journals including Critical Asian Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Democracy and New Left Review
. His writings regarding the "network monarchy", a term he coined to describe King Bhumibol Adulyadej
and his proxies, particularly former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanond, have been especially influential among Thai academics. This was the only journal article selected by Foreign Affairs for their 7-item essential reading list on Thai politics.
Other articles deal critically with issues such as constitutionalism, the politics surrounding Buddhism, and the role of the military; he was extremely critical of the 2006 military coup in Thailand. McCargo sees himself as challenging mainstream assumptions in Thai studies and beyond, questioning the value of narrowly discipline-based perspectives in favour of more eclectic and empirically-grounded approaches.
Pacific Affairs wrote of Tearing Apart the Land: “The nuances and complexities of this argument can be obtained only by a thorough reading of the book. It is by far the best analysis to date of the complexities of life in the insurgent area.” (Volume 82, No. 4 – Winter 2009/2010, pp. 740–41). In a full length review essay in London Review of Books, Joshua Kurlantzick declared: ‘Thailand, once known as one of the most stable democracies in Asia, is in political and economic crisis. . . . Southern Thailand now resembles a war zone. . . . McCargo gives a thorough explanation of why unrest began in southern Thailand, and why it has spread. . . .’(25 March 2010). Reviewing the book in the Journal of Asian Studies (May 1010) Robert W. Hefner wrote ‘McCargo has sifted through the details of this tragic conflict with extraordinary diligence and insight. The result is a small masterpiece of investigative rigor and balance.’
McCargo’s core argument is that the Southern conflict is a political problem; militants are tapping into local resentment concerning Bangkok’s refusal to grant the region any real say in the management of its affairs. Without some form of political compromise, the conflict may prove intractable – but such a solution remains perfectly possible.
Tearing Apart the Land won the Asia Society's inaugural Bernard Schwartz Book Prize for 2009, worth $20,000 Jury co-chair Professor Carol Gluck
described it as a 'vivid on-the-ground account of the Thai insurgency showing how national politics, rather than minority religion, drives the violence that is too often ascribed either to ethnicity or Islam. This is a lesson that applies not only to Southeast Asia but to many parts of the world.
McCargo is also an Associate Fellow of the New-York-based Asia Society
, and holds a visiting affiliation at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute
, Columbia University.
McCargo is cited by his undergraduate alma mater, Royal Holloway, as one of their notable alumni in the field of education.
In 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Tai Studies by Mahasarakham University
in Thailand. McCargo is only the fourth recipient of this degree; the three distinguished previous awardees were historian Charnvit Kasetsiri
, anthropologist Charles Keyes, and archaeologist Srisak Vallibhotama.
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
specializing in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
-related topics. He holds three degrees from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
: a First in English (Royal Holloway
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London. The college has three faculties, 18 academic departments, and about 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 130 different countries...
1986); then an MA in Area Studies (Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
) (1990), and a PhD in Politics (1993) (the later two from the School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
). He has also taught at Queen's University Belfast, and at Kobe Gakuin University
Kobe Gakuin University
is a private, co-educational university located on the western edge of the city of Kobe, in Hyōgo Prefecture in Japan. It was founded in 1966 and overlooks the city of Akashi, the Akashi Straits and the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge - the longest suspension bridge in the world...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
; in 2006-07, he was a visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
Writings on Thailand
McCargo's PhD thesis, "The political leadership of Major-General Chamlong SrimuangChamlong Srimuang
Major General Chamlong Srimuang is a controversial Thai activist and former politician. A former general, he was a leader of the "Young Turks" military clique, founded and led the Phalang Dharma party, served for six years as governor of Bangkok, led the anti-military uprising of May 1992, and...
" was published in a revised form as a 1997 book (which is currently being translated into Thai). Since then McCargo has published several other books on Thailand. These include: Politics and the Press in Thailand (2000), a fieldwork-based study for which he spent a year embedded in the editorial rooms of several leading Thai language newspapers; Reforming Thai Politics (2002) an edited volume which has beocme the standard work on the political reform process of the 1990s, containing chapters by a range of leading Thai and foreign scholars and activists; and The Thaksinization of Thailand, a ground-breaking 2005 analysis of the politics surrounding controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, co-authored with the revisionist political economist Ukrist Pathamanand.
Apart from his nine books – all of which have appeared in paperback – McCargo has published a large number of articles in journals including Critical Asian Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Democracy and New Left Review
New Left Review
New Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
. His writings regarding the "network monarchy", a term he coined to describe King Bhumibol Adulyadej
Bhumibol Adulyadej
Bhumibol Adulyadej is the current King of Thailand. He is known as Rama IX...
and his proxies, particularly former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanond, have been especially influential among Thai academics. This was the only journal article selected by Foreign Affairs for their 7-item essential reading list on Thai politics.
Other articles deal critically with issues such as constitutionalism, the politics surrounding Buddhism, and the role of the military; he was extremely critical of the 2006 military coup in Thailand. McCargo sees himself as challenging mainstream assumptions in Thai studies and beyond, questioning the value of narrowly discipline-based perspectives in favour of more eclectic and empirically-grounded approaches.
Writings on media and politics
By no means all of McCargo’s work has been on Thailand. He has also conducted research in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Japan. His 2003 book Media and Politics in Pacific Asia – a companion volume to his Thai press volume – develops a comparative argument, arguing against simply ‘modelling’ the political role of the media, in favour of an eclectic approach emphasising the different forms of agency deployed by media actors. This work has won him an audience in the field of communications studies, whose standard assumptions he regularly challenges.Writings on other Asian countries
McCargo has also edited a book on Vietnam (2004). He is one of the very few Southeast Asia specialists to have published a well-known volume on a different part of Asia; his book Contemporary Japan (second edition 2004) is widely assigned even by Japanologists as an introductory student text.Tearing apart the land: the southern Thai conflict
From 2005 to 2009, McCargo worked primarily on the violent conflict affecting Thailand’s southern border provinces, spending a year driving around the region and interviewing more than 270 informants. His Southern Thai project has resulted in two more books to date: the edited collection Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence (2007), a revised version of a special issue of the journal Critical Asian Studies; and his research monograph Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (2008). The latter volume has been widely reviewed; Time magazine wrote:
No armchairs for this author: he researched the book by crisscrossing southern Thailand in a temperamental 1989 Mercedes, hastening back to the town of Pattani by nightfall to avoid militant booby traps. McCargo is the real McCoy.
Pacific Affairs wrote of Tearing Apart the Land: “The nuances and complexities of this argument can be obtained only by a thorough reading of the book. It is by far the best analysis to date of the complexities of life in the insurgent area.” (Volume 82, No. 4 – Winter 2009/2010, pp. 740–41). In a full length review essay in London Review of Books, Joshua Kurlantzick declared: ‘Thailand, once known as one of the most stable democracies in Asia, is in political and economic crisis. . . . Southern Thailand now resembles a war zone. . . . McCargo gives a thorough explanation of why unrest began in southern Thailand, and why it has spread. . . .’(25 March 2010). Reviewing the book in the Journal of Asian Studies (May 1010) Robert W. Hefner wrote ‘McCargo has sifted through the details of this tragic conflict with extraordinary diligence and insight. The result is a small masterpiece of investigative rigor and balance.’
McCargo’s core argument is that the Southern conflict is a political problem; militants are tapping into local resentment concerning Bangkok’s refusal to grant the region any real say in the management of its affairs. Without some form of political compromise, the conflict may prove intractable – but such a solution remains perfectly possible.
Tearing Apart the Land won the Asia Society's inaugural Bernard Schwartz Book Prize for 2009, worth $20,000 Jury co-chair Professor Carol Gluck
Carol Gluck
Carol Gluck is an American academic and Japanologist. She is the George Sansom Professor of History at Columbia University.-Career:Gluck received her B.A. from Wellesley in 1962. She was awarded her Ph.D...
described it as a 'vivid on-the-ground account of the Thai insurgency showing how national politics, rather than minority religion, drives the violence that is too often ascribed either to ethnicity or Islam. This is a lesson that applies not only to Southeast Asia but to many parts of the world.
Other activities
As one of the world’s leading experts on contemporary Thailand, McCargo is frequently in demand as a media commentator, pundit and writer of op-ed pieces. He appears regularly in the broadcast media, especially on BBC radio and television, and his op-ed and commentary pieces have appeared in Time magazine, as well as in the Guardian Weekly, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, The Guardian, The Independent, and a dozen other newspapers around the world. He has given lengthy interviews to The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New Mandala website. Seventeen of his students have successfully earned PhDs under his supervision at Leeds.McCargo is also an Associate Fellow of the New-York-based Asia Society
Asia Society
The Asia Society is a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States and around the world Hong Kong, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, and Melbourne...
, and holds a visiting affiliation at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Weatherhead East Asian Institute
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University is a community of scholars affiliated with Columbia's Schools of Business, Law, International and Public Affairs, and Arts and Sciences, bringing together over 50 full-time faculty, a diverse group of visiting scholars and professionals,...
, Columbia University.
McCargo is cited by his undergraduate alma mater, Royal Holloway, as one of their notable alumni in the field of education.
In 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Tai Studies by Mahasarakham University
Mahasarakham University
Mahasarakham University is a public university located in the province of Maha Sarakham in the northeast region of Thailand. Currently, the university has two main campuses, one on the outskirts of Mahasarakham province and another at Kamrieng district about 8 kilometres away on the Kalasin road...
in Thailand. McCargo is only the fourth recipient of this degree; the three distinguished previous awardees were historian Charnvit Kasetsiri
Charnvit Kasetsiri
Charnvit Kasetsiri is a Thai historian of Chinese and Mon descent. He studied diplomacy and history at the Thammasat University, Bangkok from 1960–1963 and graduated with Honours and the King Bhumibol Prize with a B.A. in Diplomacy. He then pursued a Master’s degree at the Occidental College, Los...
, anthropologist Charles Keyes, and archaeologist Srisak Vallibhotama.
Authored books
- Duncan McCargo, Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand, Ithaca NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2008 (Southeast Asian edition by NUS Press, Singapore, 2009).
- Duncan McCargo, Contemporary Japan, (second edition) 244pp, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004 (first edition 2000; Malaysian translation published 2009).
- Duncan McCargo, Media and Politics in Pacific Asia, 185 pp, London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
- Duncan McCargo, Politics and the Press in Thailand: media machinations, 205 pp., London and New York: Routledge, 2000 (regional paperback edition, 300pp, Bangkok: Garuda Press 2002).
- Duncan McCargo, Chamlong Srimuang and the New Thai Politics, 334 pp., London and New York: Hurst and St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Co-authored books
- Duncan McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand, 277 pp, The Thaksinization of Thailand, Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2005 (also published in Burmese translation).
Edited books
- Duncan McCargo, Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence, 225pp, Singapore: NUS Press, 2007.
- Duncan McCargo, Rethinking Vietnam, 240pp, London and New York: Routledge, 2004.
- Duncan McCargo, Reforming Thai Politics, 291pp, Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2002.
Edited journal issues
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Patani Merdeka: Thailand’s Southern Fire’, Critical Asian Studies, 38, 1, March 2006.
- Duncan McCargo, 'Thai Buddhists and the South,' Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40, 1, February 2009.
Selected journal articles
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Thailand’s Twin Fires’, Survival, 52, 4, pp. 5–12, 2010.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Autonomy for Southern Thailand: Thinking the Unthinkable?’ Pacific Affairs, 18, 2, June 2010, 261–281.
- Duncan McCargo and Lee, Hyon-Suk, ‘Japan’s Political Tsunami: What’s Media Got to Do with It?’ The International Journal of Press/Politics, April 2010, 15: 236–245
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Mapping national anxieties: Thailand’s Southern conflict’, RUSI Journal, 154, 3, July 2009, pp. 54–61.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Thai politics as reality TV’, Journal of Asian Studies, 68, 1, February 2009, pp. 7–19.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Thai Buddhism, Thai Buddhists and the southern conflict’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40, 1, February 2009, pp. 1–10.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘The politics of Buddhist identity in Thailand’s deep south: the demise of civic religion?’ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40, 1, February 2009, pp. 11–32.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Thaksin and the resurgence of violence in the Thai South: network monarchy strikes back?’ Critical Asian Studies, 38, 1, pp. 39–71, 2006.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Network monarchy and legitimacy crises in Thailand’, The Pacific Review, 18, 4, pp. 499–519, 2005.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Cambodia: getting away with authoritarianism’, Journal of Democracy, 16, 4, pp. 98–112, 2005.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Buddhism, democracy and identity in Thailand’, Democratization, 11, 4, pp. 155–70, 2004.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Democracy under stress in Thaksin’s Thailand’, Journal of Democracy, 13, 4, pp. 112–26, 2002.
- Duncan McCargo, 'Security, development and political participation in Thailand: alternative currencies of legitimacy’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 24, 1, pp. 50–67, 2002.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Populism and reformism in contemporary Thailand’, South East Asia Research, 9, 1, pp. 89–107, 2001.
- Sombat Chantornvong and Duncan McCargo, ‘Political economy of tobacco control in Thailand’, Tobacco Control, 10, pp. 48–54, 2001.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Killing the messenger: The 1994 press bannings and the demise of Indonesia’s New Order’, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 4, 1, pp. 29–47, 1999.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘Alternative meanings of political reform in contemporary Thailand’, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, 13, pp. 5–30, 1998.
- William A. Callahan and Duncan McCargo, ‘Vote-buying in Thailand’s Northeast: the July 1995 general election’, Asian Survey, 36, 4, pp. 376–93, 1996.
- Duncan McCargo, ‘The political role of the Japanese media’, The Pacific Review, 9, 2, pp. 251–64, 1996.
Review articles
- Duncan McCargo, ‘A hollow crown’, New Left Review, Jan–Feb 2007, pp. 135–44 (also published in Spanish translation).