Are 'stable' governments really essential for a solid economy and strong society?

But most political pundits do not expect this cobbled-together coalition of "rivals" to have a long life. Perhaps we should be pondering a different issue: can Thailand effectively progress towards becoming a developed country with rapidly changing, unstable coalition governments?

Prior to the emergence of the Thaksin Shinawatra administrations, Thailand's prime ministers fought continuous battles to hold their brittle coalitions together. To rectify frequent government collapses, a new constitution was implemented to provide strong governments by restricting party-hopping.

Over the past year, a significant part of the populace was unhappy with the resulting "strong" elected government. Like most burgeoning democracies, Thailand is undergoing inevitable growing pains. No one is sure about the next step, even though most people believe in democracy.

Nevertheless, even during periods of unstable coalition governments, the Thai economy and the overall social well-being of the populace progressed, albeit at levels that failed to satisfy everyone.

In a recent Foreign Affairs article entitled "The Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State", Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in California, said democratic structures that endured "must be worthy of endurance".

"They must listen to their citizens' voices, engage their participation, tolerate their protests, protect their freedoms and respond to their needs," he said.

Over the past year, our democracy in Thailand has permitted people of different political persuasions to participate in mass protests, some of which have hurt our economic growth. Rather than viewing these protests as anarchy emanating from weak democratic structures, we should perhaps be viewing it as a natural democratic development.

Moreover, we should be rejoicing that our democracy has tolerated these inconvenient "mass protests" with minimum bloodshed and tragedy.

Diamond said in much of the developing democratic world, citizens lacked any confidence that politicians, political parties or government officials were serving anyone other than themselves.

"Bad governance is a natural condition in many of these at-risk countries," he said.

The natural tendency in developing democratic countries, Diamond said, was for elites to monopolise power rather than restrain it - through the development of transparent laws, strong institutions and market competition.

"Ordinary citizens are not truly citizens, but clients of powerful bosses, who are themselves clients of powerful patrons," he said.

Diamond said officials fed on the state, while the powerful preyed on the weak. The government's purpose is not to benefit the public, such as by providing roads, schools, clinics and sewer systems.

"Instead it produces private goods for officials, their families and cronies," he said.

Rather than reviling the protesters - on both sides of the political spectrum - we should perhaps be thanking them for helping us transition into a more "democratic" government infrastructure that truly meets the people's needs.

No doubt the leaders of the competing protest factions were part of "elite groups" that currently monopolise power in this country. However, we should remember they could not have sustained their efforts without mass support from the silent majority.

Sustainable democracies, Diamond said, required "active civic communities" in which citizens must trust one another and interact as political equals.

This past year in Thailand, opposing political factions vented their ire in what they viewed as the only effective way possible: staging mass protests that were largely unopposed by the authorities - who in effect, by their non-opposition, were tacitly approving the protest actions.

Any successful new government must undoubtedly come up with solutions that address the political conundrum affecting the opposing groups. Perhaps the opposing groups are both right or both wrong.

Either way, any successful government must derive a viable solution that satisfies some of the needs of each opposing group. Is this not the Thai way?

At the same time, each government must move towards further developing the necessary good-governance institutions of a healthy democracy. These include a truly impartial judicial system and vigorous and effective audit agencies.

We must also induce, enforce and reward what Diamond terms "civic behaviour".

"The tendency toward corrupt governance and the monopoly of power is checked by the rule of law (both culturally and institutionally) and a resourceful civil society, Diamond said.

A noted Harvard professor, Robert Putnam, said people in such societies by and large obey the law, pay their taxes, behave ethically and serve the public good not only from a sense of public-spiritedness, but also because they believe others will too - and because they know that there are penalties for failing to do so.

We must believe many of our recent protesters are aspiring to those lofty tenets of a civil society.