The Study of Village Civil Society (Prachakhom) as the Foundation for the Emergence of Civil Society Movement and Development in Northeastern Thailand

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This is a result of the research, supported by Grand-in-Aid for Scientific Research, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan from 2005 to 2007, on the village civil society as the basis for the emergence of civil society and development in Thailand's northeastern region. It is also a related outcome of the research on Regional Development in Northeast Thailand and the Formation of Civil Society (Sakurai and Somsak (eds.), Khon Kaen University, 2003).In our past projects, we have discussed the possibilities of the formation of civil society movement in Thailand. In our perspective, "Prachakhom" or village civil society is the foundation of the formation process, and, therefore, the approaches to foster Prachakhom are studied.Prachakhom as a gathering of people has been an integral part of Thai society while Civil Society Movement is a new idea, derived from the West. The principal focus of the study of the civil society movement in Thailand, therefore, lies with the study of Prachakhom. Arguably, village civil society can be divided into two types: one is truly born out of the grassroots as expounded in the alternative development paradigm while the other arises in response to government policies. The research shows that the village civil societies which emerged during the implementation of Prime Minister Thaksin's projects, such as One Tambon One Product (OTOP) Project, the Village Fund, as well as the establishment of Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO), were the second type of Prachakhom, which lacked the true participation of the people in the communities. Therefore, the objective of the research is to study the role of the media, network, educational institutions, factors and motives which engender the village civil society from the grassroots that will lead to the formation of civil society movement in the future.