รูปแบบการมีส่วนร่วมทางการเมืองระดับท้องถิ่นของภาคประชาชนในเขตพื้นที่ 17 จังหวัดภาคเหนือ | Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Surin Rajabhat University
The purposes of this research were; 1) to study the Citizens’ opinions about the model of participation in local politics in 17 provinces in northern Thailand, 2) to study the problems of participation in local politics in 17 provinces in northern Thailand and 3) to present solutions for the problems of participation in local politics in 17 provinces in northern Thailand. This research is a quantitative research with 1,024 samples. The data were collected by using a questionnaire and analyzed by using frequency, percentage, and content analysis. The results indicated that;
The people believed that the most important issues were the participation in local election voting, the participation in developing an operational plan to fit the needs and certain events, the motivation to vote for local representatives, the confidence in local representatives to be able to solve problems and improve the local communities, following the local political news, a participation in a three-year plan, a participation in public hearings on local problem solving, a participation in monitoring the projects, a participation in listening to the council meeting, and a participation in checking the three-year plan after approval, respectively.
As for the problems, there were local pressure groups, a lack of transparency, patronage systems, corruption, a lack of giving information about election, not enough places for checking name lists, and selfish local politicians with no ethics.
The results also suggested that the people should be able to participate in every local politic activity based on good governance to prevent corruption. The people should be taught to be aware of participatory democracy, particularly voting for politicians who are good, skillful, ethical and sacrificial for the society. In addition, there should be distribution of the information about the preparation of the election, service places with name lists for checking, and local politicians with leadership spirit to sacrifice for the people and the country.