| Research Abstract |
During the fieldwork, many interviews were done at the provincial offices, municipalities, and the Subdistrict Administrative Organization (SAO). Especially, I undertook the interviews at more than 10 SAOs, focusing and comparing their fiscal scales.
Whenever the interviews were done at the places, the interviews for the provincial governors, deputy governors, district chief officers & deputy chief officers, SAO officers, members of SAO assembles, and subdistrict heads & village heads as the administrators, researching into the present condition of the autonomy and the various problems. I sometimes tried to interview even for rural residents as well. As a result I found that many problems have occurred nationwide, and various kind of confusion has been emerging due to the conflict between the SAO and the supervisory organization, and due to the confrontation inside the SAO themselves.
The reasons why such confusion occurred will be shown as follows. Firstly, the Thai political culture, w
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hich generates various kinds of corruptions, and which had already existed at Subdistrict Council, the forerunner of the present SAO, have still existed though reorganizing in the different manner. Secondly, these fiscal structures of SAOs, which has been expanding rapidly as the establishment of SAO, are promoting that confrontation around the concessions. Thirdly, since recent decentralization policy has being carried out in a hurry under the various modern Thai political backgrounds, the true significance of local administration and the system for solving problems have not fully being examined.
It is said that since the new democratic constitution was enacted in 1997, "democratization" has been developed institutionally and formally. Besides, enforcement of decentralization policy seems to expand the role of local governments in rural areas as well as urban areas, through the various legislations, delegation of authorities from the central government, and the reform of the tax system.
As for the political participation as well, the concerns for the politics of the local residents have expanded as the increase of the number of members of SAO, as well as the increase of female candidates.
However, since the delegation of authorities from the central government and the distribution of budget have being proceeded hastily in spite of the inexperienced administration skills, it ironically amplified the bad habits in the rural administration in the past, that is, the injustice corruption.
It can be said as a conclusion that, by the decentralization policy, the local government and the residents got opportunities of the political participation and the autonomy institutionally. As a result, a big gap came out among the local governments, according to the abilities of each local government, as well as the awareness and abilities of each local resident. Less
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