Social Capital And Democracy Consolidation In Thailand

Thailand has been well known for its fragile political situation. The democracy phenomenon is agreeably paradox. On one hand, Thailand calls for democracy and the election, on the other hand, the result of elections is easily got disrespected. Too often those military coups were seen to overthrown elected democratic government and the citizens largely accepted it. This thesis is a bottom-up approach research that aims to define democratization and democracy consolidation means that most explained Thailand paradox democracy context. The thesis adopts the quantitative research and measures social capital; from both locations in urban Bangkok and rural non- Bangkok area. The quantitative research takes into consideration the political civic engagements and democratic values in order to access the possibility to integrate such disparity values through social capitals.In brief, after conducting the quantitative research and feedbacks through the questionnaire, it is found that although social capital cannot be simply measured by location, it does make a difference in civic engagement. Higher level of social capital has proved to facilitate higher political movement activism as seen in Bangkok residents’ case. The more often people follow political news, they tend to participate more in political movement significantly. Non-Bangkok has proved to have higher social capitals at micro level whereas Bangkok has a higher social capital at macro level. Both locations have similar trust towards individuals but significantly low trust towards institutions, especially those of politicized modern institutions while the traditional institutions are strongly trusted. Notwithstanding, the legacy of rural and urban democracies is now changing. Both locations unquestionably favor democracy. Yet, they have not found the consensus and applicable type of democracy. Therefore, conflict persists. It concludes that while democratic political institutions are important for democratization but to establish one is relatively difficult. Therefore, public participation through higher political civic values and dynamic political culture built by social capitals under wider political space context matters more for democracy consolidation like that illustrated in Thailand case.