During Thailand’s 2020–2023 wave of youth activism, once unsayable political topics moved into online debate, pushing the boundaries of public discourse. Anchored in the concept of Thai-Style Democracy, this article examines how discourse on Twitter/X shapes what becomes sayable, respectable, or sanctionable. The article argues that platformed talk did not merely reflect opinion but recalibrated legitimacy under Thai-Style Democracy. Using Critical Discourse Analysis of 4,705 tweets, five recurrent patterns were identified: (i) self-identification and labelling; (ii) rights, freedoms, and duties framed through a duty-first moral order; (iii) guardianist legitimacy and platform scaling; (iv) karmic idioms as moral justifications; and (v) conditional support and opposition tied to compatibility with duty and non-violation of royal authority. Together, these dynamics illuminated a paradox: expanding speakability around monarchy reform alongside a narrowing acceptability of youth activism. The analysis shows how online discourse participated in legitimating institutional responses and reshaping horizons of action. This study contributes to broader discussions of digital activism, generational conflict, and the resilience of Thai-Style Democracy under democratic pressure by linking the nuanced dynamics of online discourse to political events.

Over the past decade, in Australia as well as in many other liberal democracies, a “China threat” narrative has become the dominant framework for talking about China. Focusing on the role of media and academia in the production of knowledge about China, this Commentary aims to examine how the discursive category of threat is established, what gives it legitimacy, and what impact it has on public opinion. It argues that while “China threat” as a concept can be understood as a set of concerns or perceived dangers associated with the rise of China as a global power, the discourse is much more complex, entailing a system of knowledge production, the contestation of expertise, and a coalition of securitisation involving the media, politics, and the security establishment.

This article critically examines Vietnam’s territorial decentralisation, challenging overly optimistic narratives that extol its virtues. Adopting a legal-institutionalist perspective on the decentralisation framework established by the 2013 Constitution, this study reveals that Vietnam’s approach resembles limited administrative de-concentration rather than genuine political devolution. As in China and Laos, Vietnam’s incremental decentralisation involves conferring restricted and tightly monitored administrative and fiscal prerogatives while maintaining strict central political control. This process is marked by unclear power distribution, leading to overlaps and cumbersome approval mechanisms. Ultimately, Vietnam’s territorial organisation reflects the ambiguity typical of contemporary communist regimes, balancing liberalising economic aspirations with persistent centralising political features. Although some literature suggests that Vietnam’s limited decentralisation has achieved certain efficiency gains, this article questions the substance of those gains and argues that, even if they were real, their sustainability in a more liberalised environment would be highly uncertain.

This study examines the gendered dynamics of rural livelihood diversification in tea farming communities in Rize, Turkey, with the onset of neo-liberal policies. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the research explores how migration, access to education, and land ownership intersect with the unique characteristics of tea farming, such as its seasonal harvest cycle and labour-intensity, to shape gendered labour division. It highlights how migration intensifies the feminisation of agriculture by increasing women’s agricultural and domestic responsibilities. Additionally, education, while a potential pathway for mobility, often reinforces traditional gender roles for female students balancing household duties, agricultural work, and studies. Finally, the study underscores how patriarchal norms in land ownership, marginalise women and consolidate male control over land, perpetuating structural inequalities. By situating these findings within the specific socio-economic and ecological context of tea farming, this study contributes to broader debates on rural livelihood diversification, gender inequalities, and the intersection of agricultural practices with neo-liberal economic policies.

This article engages with Colin Crouch’s concept of post-democracy and its emphasis on how economic globalisation serves to undermine democracy and facilitate the exclusion of labour. While insightful, this approach is predicated upon a Western empirical bias that focuses on the temporal transition from the “consensual” Keynesian welfare state under Fordist capitalism towards “coercive” neo-liberalism. This neglects the spatially differentiated nature of experiences of neoliberalism and the latter’s associated political forms. This article’s critique is mobilised through an examination of the labour policy of the liberal Moon Jae-In administration in South Korea. Despite its progressive credentials, the Moon government failed to effectively tackle the increasing neoliberalisation of the country’s labour market or reverse trends of wage polarisation. The emergence of neo-liberal democracy was less a transition from more consensual to coercive forms of rule but the rearticulation of authoritarian practices in novel forms. As an alternative, this article draws on Gramsci’s concept of “passive revolution” as a broader explanation of how, in conditions of uneven and combined development, dominant social groups seek to establish capital’s political rule through revolutions from above as a means of forestalling the emergence of a subaltern collective will that might disrupt the accumulation process.