The impacts of the British imperialism on the Siamese state formation and long-term economic development

Abstract: Among late-industrializing countries, the roles of states in economic development and their impacts are different. Some are developmental while some are predatory. The purpose of this thesis is to address the puzzle how a state emerges as it is and has impacts on the long-term economic development. The colonialism or imperialism is one of the promising explanatory factors of different types of state in different countries. While the most literatures focus on formation of developmental and predatory state cases among fully colonized countries, this thesis studies formation of an intermediate state, the Thai or Siamese state under the British informal imperialism since mid-19th century. The studied case is also the middle case between colonized countries and independent countries. Due to lack of framework for studying the middle case, the new frameworks of state formation are reconstructed to empirically analyze and understand the case. The study illustrates the Siamese state formation was driven by two forces: the British imperialism and the resistance of local elites. The historical consequence of formation was an absolute monarchy state whose main characteristics still persisted and influenced the economic development until 1997. Or, there is the colonial legacy on the Thai state.