Political Vulnerabilities of a Primate City: The May 2010 Red Shirts Uprising in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Dynamics of the May 2010 ‘Red Shirts’ uprising in Bangkok are examined through literature about the primate city, a city that is exponentially larger than a country’s other cities. Employing news coverage of events, history about Bangkok’s urban and political development, and analyses of class-based inequalities and nationalisms that the city harbors within its confines, attributes of primate city are expanded to include its perennially vulnerable political status. Such a rendering of the politically vulnerable primate city is employed to theorize how the primate city – when functioning as a national capital – is more than a large urban center, but one that collects much of the nation’s hopes, dreams, and political struggles.