A sovereign atmosphere

Abstract In 2018 and 2019, the Bureau of the Royal Household sponsored a festival in Bangkok called Love and Warmth at Winter's End. Framed as a gift to the Thai people from the then uncrowned King Vajiralongkorn, the free event immersed visitors in vintage imagery and experiences sympathetic to royal absolutism, recruiting visitors to experience as pleasant a past era in which the Thai king's power was absolute. Through an analysis of what visitors described as the festival's fun, Thai atmosphere, I develop a political theory of atmospheres, wherein sovereignty can be understood as a claim to constituting the social through a seemingly immaterial (“fun,” “Thai,” in this case) atmosphere enveloping its members.