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people in politics and public administration was perceived. 4

This article demonstrates that the current legal and institutional

underpinning of public participation in the Thai legal system stems from
this historical juxtaposition between the concentration of wealth and state

authorities in the capital on the one hand, and on the other hand the desire to
participate in the economic and political affairs of the country by the unsettling

emerging popular mass. The subsequent two chapters explains this assentation
in greater detail. The analysis is divided into two parts: the constitutional

aspect and the administrative law aspect. The former traces the evolution of the
important constitutional ideas and implementation especially in relation to the

recognition and protection of civil liberties, individual rights, and the role of the
people in the legislative drafting process. The Constitution is the supreme law of

the land. Not only does it express the country’s idealistic aspiration and shared
identities, but it also sets out the governing framework upon which other laws and

regulations can be built, including the general principles of public participation.
The study of the conceptual origin and the mechanisms enshrined in the current

Constitution will therefore provide a springboard for a proper grasp of the
subsequent chapter, which focuses specifically on the administrative law process

pertaining to public participation. Its institutional framework including the
Administrative Court was first introduced by the so-called People’s Constitution

in 1997 to restrict the authority of the State and to protect the rights and
freedom of the people. The article ends with a short review of the challenges

that could pose threats to the progressive idea of participatory democracy.

4. The classic account of this twin dynamics was first observed by Anek Laothamatas “A Tale of Two
Democracies: Conflicting Perceptions of Elections and Democracy in Thailand” in R.H. Taylor,
The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Subsequently, the
theory was put under microscope by Duncan McCargo, who claimed, contrary to Anek’s original
account, that in the post-1997 political context at least, it is the voters from the countryside who have
been calling for the restatement of electoral democracy, while the upper middle classes denounce
democracy, preferring a form of benevolent autocracy. See Duncan McCargo, The Last Gasp of
th
Thai Paternalism, The New York Times, December 19 , 2013.
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