Bringing Non-governmental Actors into the Policymaking Process: The Case of Local Development Policy in Thailand

During the past two decades in Thailand, non-governmental actors, such as NGOs, intellectuals, and people's organizations, have found widening opportunities to participate in policy formation and in the implementation of local development. The government has facilitated the formation of civil society forums, in the expectation of influencing local-level governance. The last two national five-year development plans were formulated after taking into account the voices of people in the provinces. Even though they may seem petty, some state funds are now transmitted through non-governmental institutions for policy implementation at the grassroots level. These changes have their origin in a reformation of rural development administration in early 1980s. This reformation in due course led to policies that have allowed the participation of non-governmental actors. Meanwhile, rural people have proved their ability to engage in participatory development by forming various local organizations, while NGOs have grown to be proficient facilitators of local development. This paper describes the process whereby three leading actors, namely the government, local people, and the NGOs, have interacted to bring about a more participatory system of local development administration.

Changes in the foreign trade structure of the Russian Far East under the process of transition toward a market economy

Under the process of transition toward a market economy, the economic connections of the Russian Far East (RFE) with external regions changed from a division of labor among the regions of the USSR (Russia) to an international division of labor. This happened due to factors including the liberalization of the trade system away from a state monopoly, the presence of rich natural resources and of developed industries related to these resources, the advantage of geographically proximity to Asia-Pacific countries, and the political and economic division of the once unified national economic space during the process of transition. The economic connections of RFE with external economies changed radically under the transition toward the market economy. First, the value of foreign trade increased dramatically and the importance of foreign trade for the RFE economy increased enormously. Second, however, different territories of RFE traveled along different trajectories, due to factors involving their industrial structure and geographical conditions. Third, in recent years connections with China, in the areas of both exports and imports, have grown. Fourth, the share within exports of "fuel, mineral resources and metal" increased radically from the end of the 1990s, and the share of "machine, facilities and transportation means" increased from 2002 year within imports. Under this situation, especially since 2002, there has been a major change in the structure of foreign trade.

Increasing popular participation in the treaty-making process : the legislative process of Section 190 of the 2007 Constitution of Thailand

Historically, the authority to conclude international treaties was exclusively exercised by administrative bodies (or the chief of state). However, recent studies pointed out that the present legislative bodies have come to play a more active role through ratification or the review of treaties in European and American countries. Harrington (2005) studied judicial reform in British dominions and criticized the past executive-dominant treaty-making process as a “democratic deficit” due to a fear that under this system the nation might be bound by international agreements for which a consensus had not been obtained. These studies indicated that people’s participation in the treaty-making process has increased on a global basis, but neither of them provides sufficient descriptive evidence regarding why and how such procedures were established. The present paper therefore attempts to solve these questions by analyzing the legislative and political process of the treaty-making procedure reform in Thailand’s 2007 constitution as a case study.