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ดุลพาห

Introduction: A Historical Account of Public Participation in Thailand

Thailand had gone through a democratic transition and socio-economic
development path similar to many neighboring Asian nations. As the country became
1
more prosperous, an increasing number of citizens up and down the land who had just
emerged from subsistence poverty began to demand for a formal recognition of their

fundamental rights and proper involvement in the political process. At the dawn of
democracy in the 1930s, the first version of the Constitution (1932) laid down the

fundamental principles of democracy and the mechanism for safeguarding the rule of
law. For the first time, the Constitution recognized that the ultimate sovereignty

resides with the people of Thailand. A bicameral parliament represented the will
and aspiration of the populace and provided a counterweight keeping the executive

branch in check. In addition, the monarchical powers were bound by the constitutional
framework. Nevertheless, during this embryonic state of democracy, the country’s

administration was still controlled by a privileged few consisting of members of the
royal family, aristocrats, and foreign educated public officials until the

democratization progress took shape in the mid-1970s. Rapid industrialization and
2
the resulting sustained period of economic growth in the ensuing decades had an

effect, among others, of bridging the gap both socio-economically and politically
between the Bangkok-centered bureaucratic state and the urbanized regional centers.
3
The new destabilizing dynamics culminated in a series of economic and political
events, particularly the so-called Black May political uprising in 1992 and the Asian

Financial Crisis in 1997, that profoundly influenced the way in which the role of the

1. Aurel Croissant, “From Transition to Defective Democracy: Mapping Asian Democratization”
Democratization, Vol.11, No.5 December 2004, at 156-178. Somboon Siriprachai, Chapter on Thailand,
in Anis Chowdhury and Iyanatul Islam (eds.), Handbook of Asian Economies – Southeast Asia and
Northeast Asian, Edward Elgar, 2007.
2. Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, Thailand: Economy and Politics, Oxford University Press, 2002.
3. Phongpaichit and Baker (2002), at 258.

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