• Relations between
local government and citizens
in Thailand
• Objective of this Chapter
After this class, the students will be able to:
• describe relations between local government and citizens in Thailand;
• understand significances of relations between local government and citizens in Thailand.
•
Responsibility of
local government to citizens
• Local government not only represents the people in the local communities, but also perform a number of important functions.
• Local government has both a representational and an operational role, with responsibility for a range of services to its local community.
• Can operate through a network of directly elected local authorities which provide the country the democratic representation of local communities.
• Giving expression to local identity, identifying local concerns and setting local priorities.
• Carrying out the local government functions and local authorities are entrusted with certain powers or what we can call autonomous power given by the central government.
•
Public participation
in local politics and government
• Public participation is about ensuring meaningful engagement with locality.
• There are several terms being used to describe working with locality in order to define their own goals and address collective issues.
• These include locality/community action, local participation and local engagement.
• Locality/Community action
• In this part the collective efforts by locality are directed towards increasing local control over the determinants of participant, and thereby improving participation.
• Local engagement
• This one can be described when the locality or community is empowered to apply its collective skills and resources in order to increase local participation.
• This sometimes refers to an influence or control that make people who live within locality to have a participation.
• Local / Community participation
• This is relied on how good understanding of the people who live in any locality or communities, groups and individuals that people work with.
• Of course, effective local participation can be achieved when the people living in the community supports and share their ideas, experience, opinions, and suggestion.
• In the case of decentralization, it has been introduced to achieve outcomes that include enhanced popular participation and improved economic and social interactions.
• To say in other word, decentralisation calls for a reallocation of functions and responsibilities between different levels of government for greater efficiency.
• From this, people then have more opportunity to participate in politics at local level.
• In addition, bureaucrats at local government can deliver better services to the people at local level as well as the administrative functions and responsibilities can be performed by the local government officials more effectively.
• With this, the revision of the Thai Constitution in 1997 then included decentralisation as a means to increase the effectiveness of local government and promote the transmission of power to the local people in encouraging greater local participation in policy making.
• The Ninth National Economic and Social Development Plan (2002-2006) promoted the development of the Subdistrict Administrative Organisation (SAO) with the purpose of strengthening the local dimension of government.
• The main purpose of the decentralisation policy was to balance the development of human, social, economic and environmental resources so as to achieve sustainable people-centred development.
• Good government and modern
Thai local government
• The Ninth Plan (2002–2006) introduced the concept of good governance to the government officials.
• The Tenth Plan (2007-2011) sought to improve the quality of governance and strengthen the role and capabilities of local government, as well increase participation across the localities.
• According to the 2007 Constitution, the government will continue to pursue good governance practices.301
• However, this would be only an ideal if it continues to be ineffective in the face of difficulties and obstacles.
•
Citizenship and commitment
to local government
• The structure of the
Thai government
• In relation to Thailand’s National Administrative Structure, the Thai government introduced the National Public Administration Act in order to provide three different levels of public administration: central, provincial and local in 1991.
•
Provincial government
• Thailand is divided into 76 provinces, not including the metropolitan area of Bangkok, the capital city.
• Each province has its own governor who is appointed directly by the Ministry of the Interior to be a representative of the government and coordinator of other government agencies working at the provincial level.
• Provincial administrators are assigned by the central government under the concept of deconcentration.
•
Local government
• Thailand’ s local government, operates with two different bodies - regular territorial administrative units and self–government.
• Thai local government has limited autonomy given the high degree of centralisation of power.
• Even though local administration is very important and it involves many people not only within a provincial level but also in local areas, it is largely disregarded by government and some people at central level.
( Likhit Dhiravegin)
•
• Generally, the Ministry of Interior controls the policy, personnel, and finances of the local units at the provincial and district levels. Field officials from the ministry as well as other central ministries constitute the majority of administrators at local levels.
•
Problems with Thailand’s national administration system
• As discussed previously, Thailand continues to have difficulties in becoming a full democracy.
• Since the country went from being a monarchical state to a bureaucratic polity, to plutocracy, and then democracy, the political system has not developed as hoped.
• It has not always been stable, with several interventions by the military over the years.
• In addition, under the plutocratic arrangements, there is considerable reliance on wealth, which brings corruption.
• At the lowest level, local government is significant to the degree that, under decentralisation, people at this level have more knowledge and are more aware of the local situation and are, therefore, able to come up with more locally appropriate responses.
• This stage is very important - knowledge and understanding are very significant because they are part of the foundation of democracy.
• The Ninth and Tenth Plans then will be discussed especially in terms of good governance and the attempt to link directly the national administrative system with local government and of course, the results of then also affect the people in locality.
• The Ninth Plan introduced the concept of good governance which is very relevant to decentralisation, and the Tenth Plan of 2006-2011 seeks to solve the problems regarding the development of good governance, and to strengthen the role and capabilities of local government.
• The Tenth Plan
• The Tenth Plan emphasises the promotion of mechanisms and processes to increase participation across the localities.
• The Ninth and Tenth Plans would be assessed as to whether the government‘s objective of good governance is on the path to success or failure.
• Aims of the Tenth Plan
• Promote Good Governance;
• Utilize “local wisdom” and “Thainess” as to generate “value creation” in products;
• Develop agricultural institutions, community plan, and community enterprises;
• Promote agricultural sustainability.
• The Eleventh Plan
• Aims to strengthen domestic development partners at the community level by:
• Pursued by empowering the capacity of communities and local governments in preparing for international and domestic changes.
• The development mechanism will be strengthened for formulating strategies at the provincial level and provincial clusters, especially in border provinces, for cross border cooperation.
• Support will also be provided for the enhancement of technical capacity and networks of Thai academic institutes in order to create close collaboration with other countries in this region.