Study On The Cultural Policy In Thailand At The Early 21^st Century

Cultural policy is the general term of a set of institutional regulations,norms,principles and requirements adopted by the state in ideological managements,administrate management and economic management in the fields of culture and art,press and publication,radio,film,television and cultural relics.It contains the rules and regulations which is used to regulate cultural behavior,manage cultural development and coordinate cultural relations under certain social conditions and historical background.It refers to related issues in the field of culture,and are political decisions made by countries,organizations and groups to achieve certain cultural management purposes.Since the 21st century,the government has been effectively supervising and guiding cultural development through cultural policies,which is a universal cultural and political behavior of the modern international community.Following the trend of diversification and integration in the world,the development of Thai culture is always under going change.Looking back on the historical evolution of Thai cultural policy,since the reform in 1932,Thai culture has experienced five stages:reform,prosperity,decline,awakening and development.Among them,Religious culture policies and cultural heritage policies played an important role in the development of Thai cultural policies.Therefore,this research is based on the perspectives of religious policies and cultural heritage policies to study the historical evolution and trend characteristics of Thai cultural policies since the early 21st century.From the perspective of religious cultural policies,religious attributes are manifested everywhere from the Thai Constitution to the government planning all.Thai religions have great influence on politics,economy,education,social life,culture and art,especially Buddhism.The biggest impact has been on basic education in Thailand.Temple schools and Islamic schools play an important role in the development of Thai education and have a profound impact until now.With the development of network informatization,the religious beliefs of the Thai younger generations have begun to weaken,but the role of religion in the economic and social spheres in Thailand is still significant.Moreover,the Thai government has been very active in promoting the prosperity and development of religions.From the perspective of cultural heritage policy,the Thai government is striving to protect cultural heritage.At the end of last century,Thailand successfully declared five world cultural heritages.In the 21st century,while protecting the tangible cultural heritage,the Thai government also tries to protect the intangible cultural heritage,and promotes the legalization,institutionalizion and standardization of preserving the intangible cultural heritage.In 2016,The Intangible Heritage Protection Law has been established,and then,the Kong Opera of Thailand was included in The List of the World Intangible Cultural Heritages.The Thai government has combined the protection of cultural heritage with the development of tourism.On the one hand,it increases the people's economic income and makes them participate in protecting national cultural heritages.On the other hand,it increases the people's national identity through cultural heritage preservation,thus inheriting cultural traditions,strengthening the solidarity of the people,and maintaining national unity and social stability.Based on the analysis of Thailand religious policies and cultural heritage policies,we can draw four characteristics of cultural policy in Thailand at the early 21st century and four trends of cultural policy in Thailand at the rest 21st century.