Resource Politics and State-Society Relations: Why Are Certain States More Inclusive than Others?

Why do some states resort to more exclusive top-down management of natural resources, while others tend to be more inclusive and solicit participation from civil society? By rejecting the simple characterization of the state within the narrow spectrum of “weak” and “strong,” this article investigates resource-mediated relations in the peripheral social groups that the state has sought to transform as part of the process of modernization. Focusing on Siam and Japan, I highlight alternative explanations based on ethnicity and labor, bureaucratic mindset, and agro-ecological conditions. I argue that the more embedded nature of the labor force in resources sectors made it necessary for the Japanese government to engage with marginal people, whereas the enclave nature of such sectors in Siam allowed elites to establish a distinctively exclusive system. While the Japanese state quickly learned to accommodate people at the fringes through its recognition and acceptance of existing customs in the management of resources, and even facilitated the creation of local organizations such as forest unions, the Siamese were consistently more exclusionary and even oppressed indigenous groups living at the state's territorial periphery. Resource interventions targeted at the fringes of land and society in Japan and Siam produced lasting effects on state-society relations that have extended far beyond their original intention of securing resource procurement. Understanding the historical roots of such relations offers a fresh perspective from which to explain why state inaction prevails in the present debate on state devolution in Thailand.