Many farangs have figured out that the patron-client system is one of the more important pieces of glue that holds Thai society together. Unfortunately, this valuable insight is spoiled by a misunderstanding of how exactly this glue adheres.

This misconception becomes most obvious when election time rolls round and the letters columns of the Bangkok Post and The Nation are filled with well-intentioned but wrong-headed exhortations for clients to take the money from one patron (or more) and vote for another.

This assumes that patrons are somehow in a position of power over clients and the Thai version of patronage (which heaven knows is well established in societies the world over) is a form of command and control. The patron uses money to persuade, induce or coerce the client into doing what the patron wants.

Vote-buying (at least as far as farangs and many middle-class Thais see it) superficially seems to fit that analysis. But the first inkling that this may be an oversimplification comes when you realize that there is no such thing as electoral patron-client relationships. Or nothing that springs into existence only at election time.

When voters are asked to choose between the various worthies who have put themselves up for election, they make decisions based on their relationship with these candidates in all spheres of life.

Have they (or one of their entourage) lent them money? Did they sort out the nephew’s application for technical college? Were they able to lean on the local rozzers when dad got done for overloading his pick-up? Did they come to grandma’s funeral?

In an ideal ‘western democracy’, voters are supposed to assess the qualities and values that candidates will bring to the job. (In fact, research shows that a depressingly large proportion of voters choose politicians the same way they choose toothpaste.) But the pitch is in the future tense. Obama gets picked for what he has the audacity to hope for (in the future) and for what he thinks he can change (if and when he takes office).

Thai election speeches have tended to be in the past tense. They dwell on what the candidate has already done for the constituency. Thaksin changed the discourse by making specific promises that he actually kept, so there are a lot more promises about than there were, but since all parties are offering the same moon, and nobody really believes in them, it’s not clear that they count for much.

So what happens on polling day is just one manifestation of a complex of mutual obligations and considerations that needs a much deeper analysis than the ‘one purple note = one vote” equation that many farangs have extrapolated from some very skimpy data.

It is easy, and wrong, to note that since patrons have more power and prestige, economically, politically and socially, they therefore must use this leverage as a way of ordering people about. But this unequal power structure does not operate by giving and following orders.

The patron and client both operate from an assumed set of shared interests. Each believes they know what the other would like them to do to further their common goals. When the opportunity arises for action to achieve mutually desired goals, they will take it, often without any direct prompting.

It plays more like an un-egalitarian network than a hierarchy. From each according to their ability; to each according to their boramee.

This doesn’t mean that people are never wrong on the assumptions they make. And there the problems start. Suppose, in a misguided effort to please, somebody does something that actually harms the patron-client nexus. Because patrons and clients are in this together, the instinctive reaction is not to condemn or ostracize, but to protect and defend. This is especially pernicious when the offence is something criminal or immoral.

Now if you’ve realized that what you thought was an order-and-obedience relationship is in fact far more collaborative and mutually supportive, then the next step you must take is to recognize that this is the system even in contexts where a clear chain of command would make more sense.

Like in the military or police.

They have the whole nine yards of ranks and uniforms and saluting and ‘sir’-ing. It’s mostly just show.

Thai military history is a catalogue of rogue actions, and policies, strategies and tactics concocted on the spur of that moment’s necessity by somebody who thought he was doing what others wanted of him.

Now unfortunately when the men with guns make a mistake, the results tend to be irreversible. But the natural reaction is still to excuse, to cover up, to exculpate. 78 men, stacked like logs on army trucks from Tak Bai, arrive as dead as logs and the Prime Minister blames Ramadan. An imam is tortured to death in a military camp and they can’t find the duty rosters to see who might have done it.

The patron-client system is an important brick in the wall of impunity.

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).