Schott's Vocab blogs on the term ปฏิวัติประชาชน, although probably needs to be การปฏิวัติประชาชน to be grammatically correct, used by Thaksin during the Songkran mayhem. It relies on Bloomberg's rough translation of "people's coup".
BP: Is it people's coup or people's revolution? Jon Fernquest commented at New Mandala:
What a semiotic jungle the word ปฏิวัติ is. When I first heard it after the 2006 coup, I replied, don’t you mean รัฐประหาร. I thought that maybe using the word “revolution” for “coup” was casting it in positive light but Thaksin uses this way too in the given quote. Then there is การปฏิวัติ ประชาชน which surely can’t mean coup of the people, but before the 1992 so-called People’s Revolution many elements of the Bangkok middle class sympathized with the military and coup as they did in 2006 although they later changed their minds. If current events are simply the latest manifestation of the “Tale of Two Democracies” phenomenon, then what “People” does การปฏิวัติ ประชาชน refer to? Thailand is a divided nation. As always, more accurate demographics seems to be called for.
BP: When they stage a coup, the military always state or it is reported that it was actually a ปฏิวัติ or revolution as if to imply something romantic on what took place and that there was going to be change. รัฐประหาร or coup would be more accurate for the military did in 2006 and in the past, but the military have successfully instilled the term revolution in the public mindsight. Hence, Thaksin and others are trying to use the term "people's revolution", but then as Fernquest notes isn't "people's revolution" just a euphemism as well given the country is divided?
btw, BP's mind has gone blank, but there is a doctoral dissertation out there which in the opening section looked at the semantics of the Thai military in using the term ปฏิวัติ. Anyone remember the title?
btw, surely the classic is the term "surgical strike".
I guess you talk about this one?
Suvarnajata, Supalak. (1994). The Thai Military Coup d'Etat: Origins, Withdrawal/Civialian Control, and Perspectives. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. The Claremont Graduate School, CA, USA.
In Supalak's definitions (p.39), she referred to four terms: 1) the revolution (ปฏิวัติ); 2) the coup d'etat (รัฐประหาร); 3) the seizure of poer (ยึดอำนาจ), and; 4) the rebellion or the attempted coup (กบฏ).
Not sure if there is a recent work on such topic.
In Thak Chaloemtiarana's excellent history/political analysis, "The Politics of Despotic Paternalism," he talks about Sarit's two coups, the first, in 1957, to seize power and the second, in 1958, "against himself" to consolidate power. Sarit emphasized that the '58 coup was a revolution (pattiwat) rather than a coup. Thak (at p.95) quotes from Sarit's biography: After the first coup
"there was no attempt to alter the form of government and administration. There still existed a parliament, political parties, a free-press system that could criticize the government, and there were labor unions that could go on strike .... The worst aspect was the desires of MPs to become cabinet ministers and political appointees."
So in the planning of the '58 coup:
"It was concluded that there must be a revolution [pattiwat] in Thailand to implement political mechanisms suitable for the administration of the country, and that a coup d'etat [ratthaprahan] would not solve any problems."
The 'revolution' was worse than the coup in many ways. Political parties were banned, there were mass arrests of alleged communist sympathisers and of newspaper editors. Political gatherings were banned. (Thak at 96.)
jonfernquest is kind of on the right track, but is missing the important point that ปฏิวัติ was the term used by Sarit to describe his "revolution" which was actually a รัฐประหาร. He changed the meaning such that the military always used it since. That is my reading, anyway. I am not sure of Thaksin's usage, so won't comment further.
Reg