This paper will examine the collision between Kelsenian and Schmittian ideas in relation to Thailand’s contemporary colour-coded crises. The application of the Kelsen-Schmitt debate in the Thai context exemplifies the declining dominance of the Schmittian idea. Though the “Yellow-shirt” faction in Thai politics is still capable of engineering a military coup—the exercise of sovereign decisionism in the Schmittian sense – such hegemony and ability are declining due to the rise of pro-democracy movements calling for placing political power under the control of a liberal-democratic constitution. Overall, the Thai case reveals the growing need to ‘liberalise’ and ‘institutionalise’ the Schmittian idea, especially by resorting to the Kelsenian legal-technical mechanism, the Constitutional Court. Meanwhile, to move the Kelsenian liberal-democratic project forward, there is also a growing need to resort to Schmitt’s idea of political struggle.

Our next Annual Conference will take place from July 6-9, 2021. It will be held in a completely novel way as a fully online Conference: ICON•S Mundo.
The Call for Papers for ICON•S Mundo is available here. Submissions for papers and panels must be made by May 1, 2021.
Log into your ICON•S account and apply for ICON•S Mundo by submitting your proposal.
Apply for ICON•S Mundo