Rulers in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia must have been looking over their shoulders when their neighbours in Thailand overthrew a strongman who, like them, had tried to dominate the instruments of government.
On the one hand, the relative lack of violence in Thailand's regime change shows the distaste for blood across a region that is increasingly linked by transport and trade. On the other, Thailand's 'silk revolution', which took two years to unfold, provides a model for overthrowing entrenched leaders through the use of finesse, patience, legal acumen and cunning international diplomacy.
Thai progressives have aimed, following the massacres of 1973, 1976 and 1992, to reduce the ability of men with money and guns to bully the undereducated poor into voting for them and legitimising their grip on power.
Street protests, Asia's most footloose media and grass-root uprisings, such as the Songs-for-Life movement, ultimately failed. The most forceful figures - from Phibun Songkhram in the 1950s, to 1990s coup leader Suchinda Krapayoon and billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra - always seemed to win and then cling to power by corrupting almost every arm of the state.
But after last week's court ruling to ban Mr Thaksin's ruling party, the Thai Rak Thai, from politics for five years, many local commentators have renewed hope for democracy and justice. While some international human rights groups have accused the military junta of guiding the court to evict an elected government from power, many pragmatic Thais interpret western-style democracy as only the means to an end.
For them, justice, equality and good governance remain a higher priority, even if it means royal intervention, coups, temporary military rule and curbs on politicians and their websites and TV broadcasts.
