The Legal Foundation of State Stability in The Early Bangkok period

Abstract

This dissertation offers a new perspective on the history of early Bangkok, through studying the usage of laws. It studies the relationship between law, religion, and the state in early 19th-century Siam, and the use of laws by the state and rulers, to assess the effectiveness of law enforcement, and to offer an alternative interpretation of pre-modern Thai history by making a clear and consistent distinction between the ?monarch? and the ?state? as separate entities within the law. This work argues that a distinction exists in traditional Thai law, implicitly though not explicitly. This study also examined how the state established and maintained its stability through Buddhist concepts of kingship and Thai law. It argues that the king possessed great authority in theory, but the facts show that his authority was not as absolute as it was presumed.