Unrest in Thailand and psychology

Regarding the unrest in Thailand at the moment I was interested in looking at the psychology of civil unrest. A quick Google search took me to an article about the unrest in the US in the 60’s and 70’s. A lot of the article was highfalutin, but the one thing I did get from it was this “The unrest was not in the power structure of society but in the individual’s sense of his or her own powerlessness” and I wondered if this could be the case in Thailand right now. It would make sense. People feel powerless in the position they find themselves in so they decide to get up and do something about it.