Fireside Chat with Pita Limjaroenrat

Join a fireside chat featuring Thai political leader Pita Limjaroenrat and Edmund Malesky, professor of political science at Duke. How can Thailand address pressing challenges stemming from socio-economic inequality, an aging population, domestic political instability, regional power struggles, and climate change? In conversation with Edmund Malesky, Pita Limjaroenrat will explore these questions and more, providing insight into several of the most urgent issues facing Thailand today. ---About the speaker--- Pita Limjaroenrat formerly led the Move Forward Party (MFP) in Thailand's May 2023 general elections, where his social democratic platform won the most votes and seats in the Parliament. Despite this mandate, his attempts to form a government were blocked by institutional mechanisms, and the Constitutional Court dissolved the MFP on August 7. He was barred from running for elected office for 10 years. Pita's policy focus centers on addressing grassroots issues, welfare improvements, and human rights, while advocating for the demilitarization of politics and economic demonopolization. In Fall 2024, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia, Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a joint MPA-MBA from Harvard Kennedy School and MIT Sloan and has been named on the TIME 100 Next List. Today, Pita continues to champion transparent and equitable governance on a global scale. Most recently, he has been campaigning in support of the People's Party, including party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut. ---About the host--- Edmund (Eddy) Malesky is a professor of political economy at Duke and director of the Duke Center for International Development (DCID). A leading voice in international and comparative political economy, Malesky has produced groundbreaking research on governance, markets, and institutional reform in developing and authoritarian regimes, with a particular emphasis on Southeast Asia. Malesky's scholarship centers on critical questions in foreign direct investment (FDI), investment incentives, authoritarian institutions, transparency, and anti-corruption. He has been at the forefront of developing practical tools that translate academic insights into measurable governance improvements. Most notably, he pioneered the Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), which has become a widely adopted model for assessing subnational economic governance from the perspective of private firms.