Professionals and Soldiers: Measuring Professionalism in the Thai Military

Thailand’s military has recently reclaimed its role as the central pillar of Thai politics. This raises an enduring question in civil-military relations: why do people with guns choose to obey those without guns? One of the most prominent theories in both academic and policy circles is Samuel Huntington’s argument that professional militaries do not become involved in politics. We engage this premise in the Thai context. Utilizing data from a new and unique survey of 569 Thai military officers as well as results from focus groups and interviews with military officers, we evaluate the attitudes of Thai servicemen and develop a test of Huntington’s hypothesis. We demonstrate that increasing levels of professionalism are generally poor predictors as to whether or not a Thai military officer prefers an apolitical military. Indeed, our research suggests that higher levels of professionalism as described by Huntington may run counter to civilian control of the military. These findings provide a number of contributions. First, the survey allows us to operationalize and measure professionalism at the individual level. Second, using these measures we are able to empirically test Huntington’s hypothesis that more professional soldiers should prefer to remain apolitical. Finally, we provide an uncommon glimpse at the opinions of Thai military officers regarding military interventions, adding to the relatively sparse body of literature on factors internal to the Thai military which push officers toward politics.

职业军人与士兵：测量泰国军队的职业化程度

关键词：泰国，文武关系，军事政变，职业化，亨廷顿。

泰国军方最近又恢复了对泰国政治的掌控。这向我们提出了一个在文武关系研究中长期存在的问题：为什么手里掌握武器的人会选择服从那些不掌握武器的人？在学界以及政策圈子里最为盛行的理论之一就是塞缪尔∙亨廷顿提出的职业军人不会涉入政治的说法。我们以泰国为特定环境来验证这个假定。根据对591位泰国军官进行的一个全新而且独特的调查所得到的数据，以及针对军官的焦点小组和访谈得到的结果， 我们评估了泰国军人的态度，并且对亨廷顿的理论假设进行了检验。我们的检验表明，对于泰国军官是否更偏好非政治化的军队，职业化程度的增长一般来说是个很差的预测变量。实际上，我们的研究表明亨廷顿所描述的那种更高的职业化程度并不利于政府对军队的控制。我们的这些研究发现在以下几个方面作出了贡献：首先，调查允许我们在个人层面对职业化概念进行操作化和测量；第二，利用这些测量结果，我们得以对亨廷顿的“职业化高的士兵会更倾向于保持非政治化的立场”这一假设进行了经验性的验证；最后，对于泰国军官对军方干预政治的看法，我们的研究也提供了不同寻常的一瞥，这为理解泰国军方内部推动军官干预政治的因素的有限的研究文献增加了新的内容。

Translated from English by Li Guo