The Role of Advisers and Experts in the Reform Projects in Siam under King Rama V.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sebastian Conrad
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 279032905

In the second half of the nineteenth century a time of far-ranging reform projects began in Siam. The reforms affected the whole country and changed it fundamentally. They were initiated by King Rama V. (1853-1910), whose father King Rama IV. (1804-1868) had already started first changes. It was Rama V. who wanted to save Siam from European interventions and ultimately from colonial rule, and for that reason strove to acquire technical, societal and economic achievements from the European powers in order to instrumentalize them for his country. To attain this goal he both recruited foreign experts, and sent several of his brothers abroad to European universities. The emerging international group of experts operated in an increasingly entangled world. Foreign and indigenous experts competed with their visions of the modernization of the country. Siam transformed as a reaction to exterior pressure as well, but the implementation of foreign knowledge took place in a different way than in the colonized neighboring countries. Foreign experts never held the monopoly on technical, institutional, and economic knowledge. As a result, reform measures were negotiated in close cooperation, and competition, between different groups of advisors. This project aims to reconstruct the dynamics of this process, and understand the ways in which different groups of actors were able to influence the modernizing strategies of the regime.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants