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Review on Palestine and News

On May 15, 2025, UCI’s Dr. Brook Haley was arrested while attending a Palestine solidarity rally on campus. WIthout warning, police officers converged on Haley suddenly in the middle of the rally and arrested him for “felony vandalism”.

Lecture on Thailand/Georgia • Prof. Bui

• May 27, 2025 Overview

• Middle-Income Trap

• Authoritarianism

• Coloniality

Tourism

Cruisine

Dance

Reaching status of OECD: Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development

Level 4 Language Difficulty (US State Department)

ฉันรกัการศกึษาระดบั โลก

C̄hạn rạk kār ṣụ̄ks̄́ā

radạb lok

მე მიყვარს გლობალური კვლევები

me miq’vars globaluri

k’vlevebi

• China classified as upper-middle-income country by the World Bank, struggling to transition to a high- income economy despite being second largest economy in world.

• gross national income (GNI) per capita of US$12,597, China more than US$1,000 behind the international threshold of US$13,845 defining a high-income country in 2023.

Household Debt and Remittances

Thailand's household debt is a significant issue, with the household debt-to-GDP ratio remaining high, 90%.

Remittances on the Economy

In 2021 for example, remittance inflows in Georgia amounted

to USD 2.35 billion or 13% of the country’s gross domestic

product (GDP). Significantly, remittances have risen by 76%

since 2012.

● Remittances: funds sent by migrants abroad to families

Georgia Thailand • 3.7 million 71.2 million

upper-middle income” countries

Both famous for their culture (food/wine) and tourism

Both in the continent of Asia (but Georgia often lumped with Europe depending on who you ask)

Rising Authoritarianism in Georgia/Thailand Democracy Matrix

Deficient Democracy0.716Georgia51

Moderate Autocracy0.3Thailand135

Deficient Democracy0.811United States of America36

Working Democracy0.958Denmark1

Working Democracy0.956Norway2

Working Democracy0.946Finland3

Working Democracy0.946Sweden4

Working Democracy0.944Germany5

Working Democracy0.934Switzerland6

Working Democracy0.93Netherlands7

What countries do you think are ranked highest For democratic norms?

Rise of Populist Authoritarian Conservative Parties

Feudalism to Industrialism: The Incomplete Transition to Modern Liberal Democracy

Georgia’s Frozen Conflicts:

1893 to 1917, Georgia part of Russian Tsarist Empire

1921-1991 Georgia under Soviet Union (USSR)

Georgia’s ongoing wars with Russia and occupation/annexation

Thailand’s military coups: 1932 Promoters Revolution ended absolute monarchy, vested power in the people but actually in a small group of promoters under party dictatorship with pretends of constitutional reform

Democratic Backsliding & Emigration

Many young Thais and Georgians have left their countries due to better economic opportunities abroad…but also political situations at home

Military Coups (Thailand 2014)

Political Revolutions (Rose Revolution 2003 in Georgia)

General Prayut Chan-o-cha

President Mikheil Saakashvili

Coloniality (of Power)

• Colonialism

• --Ism: system, practice, or belief

• Coloniality

• --ity: a condition or state

Can you think of something that is not direct/overt/obvious colonial, but it is anyway?

1. Impact of Colonialism on Global Political Economy and Developing Nations

UN Security Council: Permanent Members

• Five permanent members: veto power to block any resolution that is not in their interest.

• Ten non-permanent members: These members are elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms

Imagined Communities

* This book is the most highly cited work across the most disciplines

• Almost every year the United Nations admits new members. And many 'old nations,' once thought fully consolidated, find themselves challenged by 'sub' - nationalisms within their borders - nationalisms which, naturally, dream of shedding · this sub-ness one happy day.

• The reality is quite plain: the 'end of the era of nationalism,' so long prophesied, is not remotely in sight. Indeed, nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time. P. 2

Insurgencies/Ethnic Conflict/Separatism/Secessionists

Imagined Communities, 2006, p. 69

• Europe's 'discovery' of grandiose civilizations hitherto only dimly rumoured…[in Asia}…suggested an irremediable human pluralism.

• Most of these civilizations had developed quite separate from the known history of Europe, Christendom, Antiquity, indeed man: their genealogies lay outside of and were unassimilable to Eden. (Only homogeneous, empty time would offer them accommodation.)

• The impact of the 'discoveries' can be gauged by the peculiar geographies of the imaginary polities of the age.

• The geo-body of a nation:

• 1) the territory of a nation, but to the fact that

• 2) the image of the territory of the nation is clearly recognizable to the citizens of the nation through their exposure to maps and images of the borders of the nation, and that 3) this image of the nation’s territory “is a source of pride, loyalty, love, passion, bias, hatred, reason, unreason” etc. (17)

What is the Difference?

Country Nation-State Geo-Body

A distinct political entity with land government Sovereign state with common language/identity Classification/ordering of people/territory

“OURS” “WE” US (THEM)

Land of Liberty “We the People” “Americans are the best in the world”

Sex Tourism in Thailand

• US brokered an agreement with Thai government during Vietnam War for things like the “girlfriend law”

• R&R (rest and relaxation) zones set up, red light districts that continue today

Average monthly salary in Thailand is just below $500. Adult sex workers pass that amount as main wage- earners in their families

Long-Running Myth: Thailand is one of the few countries never to have been Colonized

• In 1893, after French gunboats forced their way up to Bangkok, Thailand forced to cede to France all Lao territories east of the Mekong River

• Siamese government lost rights over four Malay states to the British.

Coloniality of Gender

Definition:

describes how relationships between women, between men and between women and men, changed through the unequal social interactions.

Yulia Navalnaya

Yekaterina Duntsova

Women taking on Patriarchal Authoritarianism

Chonticha Jangrew (DRG) Tina Bokuchava (UNM)

King Rama

Military

Georgian Dream

Putin

Political Polarities

Men-Women

Straight-Queer Modern-Premodern Soviet/Post-Soviet

(Imperial)Metropole/Periphery

The Russian-Ukraine War

• A war over land and territory

• A war of power and resources

• A war over identity (total annihilation)

Russia’s invasion of other democracies reflects its own internal democratic issues

Third World Global South

Pre-Colonial cosmology Indigenous Colonialism

Colonizer

Colonized Cold War

First World Second World Third World

Postcolonial

Global North Global South

GEO-BODIES

Why is History Repeating Itself in Thailand and Georgia?

Russian ongoing invasion and violation of Georgia

Thailand and its constant coups and military takeovers

Who has the power to stop authoritarianism in these countries and in the world?

Review

• Middle Income Trap • Geo-body • Third World/Global South • Coloniality • Coloniality of Power • Coloniality of Gender

● Gasviani, Gvantsa. "Post-Soviet Gender Regimes: Militarized Masculinities in the Making of the Russian-Ukrainian War." International Journal of Interdisciplinary Global Studies 18.1 (2023): 35-56.

• Phikrohkit, Kasidit “Gunn”. “Enmeshment Aesthetics: Social Media, Mobility, and Materiality in Chiang Mai, Thailand.” Southeast Asian Media Studies Journal 5.1 (2023): 65-90.