Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Thai Political Party

Borrowing elements from such ‘antiparties’ as Spain’s Podemos and Italy’s Five Star Movement, the party used internet technologies to promote its leaders, Thanathorn and his leadership team gaining a celebrity status. It also appealed directly to voters with a national platform, rather than relying on local efforts to mobilize voters. Since the election, the party has been dissolved and its leaders banned from politics.

Thanathorn and his colleagues represented an existential threat to the Thai establishment – at least in the imaginations of the elite. Their ability to capture the zeitgeist and tap into the aspirations of digital natives and millennials feeling little loyalty to older notions of Thai identity posed an immense challenge to the powers-that-be. Despite the demise of Future Forward, a significant shift in Thai politics signaled by the party’s success seems to be in motion. This is the first book to examine the most interesting new force to emerge in Thai politics for two decades, one also exploring the wider dynamics of political leadership, party formation and voter behavior in a society where popular participation has been largely suppressed since the 2014 military coup.