Political regimes and employment relations in Thailand

Drawing on material collected from periods of fieldwork between 2011 and 2014, this article examines the institutions and practices of Thai employment relations in the context of broader conflicts over state power and regime type. It argues that a focus on regime and regime dynamics offers a more complex and nuanced way of investigating the political mediations of workplace regulation. It discusses how competing regime framers in Thailand have each had an impact on the establishment and modification of the rules that govern employment relations, as well as determining how those rules are enforced or not enforced in practice. Despite their differences, the interests of statist, liberal and pluto-populist forces have coalesced around using the various powers of the state to constrain workers' collective attempts to engage in the work-effort bargain.