Thailand Political Culture Essays - Tai Peoples,

Thailand: Political Culture INTRODUCTION For us to be able to study political culture, it is imperative that we first learn how to define it. Political culture refers to the attitudes, beliefs and values, which underpin the operation of a particular political system. These were even seen as including the knowledge and skills about the political system, positive and negative emotional feelings towards it and the evaluative judgments about that system. Particular regional, ethnic or other groups within a political system which are referred to as subcultures have their own way of dealing with the political system that the political culture in one country can be united or may even be diverse. This has been given greater focus because of the fact that the influence of the individuals involved in this vary significantly due to geography, religion, ethnicity and even the economy. Studying political culture may help us understand of how a certain people react to certain political events and developments in certain societies and it may also help us be aware of the reasons for tension within a community and even in nations. This paper aims to study the particular political culture of Thailand and further examine the causes of how it came to be now. It also aims to examine how this particular kind of political culture has influenced the way that the government is run today and most of all, its effects on the other sectors and parts of the community. Wide research has been done to resolve this particular study. The resources include encyclopedias, books on the country, articles of newspapers and the Internet. There has also been interaction on the part of the researcher and people from the said country by means of the chat room. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The theory that would best serve the out puts of this paper would be the one on the relation of democracy and development. It is composed of two theses; one that says, Development causes democratization. This is backed up by many political theorists and will be discussed furthermore in the analysis as applied to the case of Thailand. The other one stresses, Development does not lead to democracy of even further democratization. It stated different reasons for this such as (1) statist economic development which says that the government of that certain country is involved or even controls the economic development of their country so, there is intervention on the part of the government in terms of the economy; (2) culture as a factor where the people in the government and the society accepts the thought of development in the economy and also the government but they do not apply it because they want to preserve the traditional cultures of the people; (3) racial and ethnic division; (4) external factors such as intervention from foreign countries and even the IMF or the World Bank and; (5) political factors. This thesis holds true for countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia where we can see that they are economically developed but there is no democracy in the country because of two or more reasons stated abov e. THAILAND Prathet Thailand (Land of the Free) or Kingdom of Thailand is located in the Southeast Asia. Previously called Siam, it has a total land area of 198, 456 sq. miles (514, 000 sq. km.). Located in mainland Asia, it extends for about 985 miles (1, 585 km) from north to south and about 510 miles (821 km) from east to west. It is bordered on the north and west across the Salween River by Burma, on the north and east across the Mekong River by Laos, on the southeast by Cambodia and on the south across the Isthmus of Kra by Malaysia. LAND It is mainly divided into four regions: the Northern Mountains which is mainly full of forests of evergreen and teak trees; the Khorat Plateau which covers about 30% of its land area and is the most populated; the Central Plains which is the most fertile area and where the Thais plant their rice and lastly, the Southern Peninsula which is mostly covered by dense jungles, home to many animal species. Thailand boasts of its being the only nation in Asia to have avoided colonial domination so it has managed to preserve its traditional society,