The roles and perceptions of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs through governmental politics in the Preah Vihear Temple dispute

Abstract

In the Thai-Cambodian Preah Vihear Temple dispute, the perceptions of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) are investigated. Through the employment of role theory, the MFA's national role conceptions (NRCs), since the Cold War period and with concentration on the years from 2008 to 2013, are explicated. The research presents that the organizational characteristics of the ministry conduce the propensity for cooperative NRCs. At the same time, as the agency dealing with foreign affairs, the material and ideational elements in the external environment are important determinants. Nevertheless, at times, the national public opinion and the decline of the MFA's autonomy have proven to counteract the ministry's organizational standpoint in the task of diplomacy and pragmatism in the dealings of external affairs. Moreover, whether the MFA's NRCs are translated to actual policy outcomes, it depends on the interplay of actors in the Thai foreign-policy domain. In the period covered, different dynamics between the foreign-policymaking actors are apparent. With the governmental politics approach, the dissertation demonstrates that Thailand's foreign policies do not represent the NRCs held by the MFA when governmental politics is high in confrontation and the MFA possesses low influence in the action channel.