Local Politics and Democracy in Thailand
Abstract This article aimed to explain the development of the Thai local politics and democracy which originated from the concept of the administration decentralization, and to promote the importance of democracy basic principles learning. In developed countries it is evident that the progress of politics and democracy experienced the processes of tolerance, majority rules and minority rights, conflict solving, negotiation, and benefits assimilation. The early stage of the initiation of the Thai local administration, under the District Administration Act of the year 1994 has also caused the conflicts and violence to life and properties, as well as crimes and corruptions of those involved with local politicians. However, the experience from the past two decades has led to the development of communities and local politicians resulting in the development of public utilities including roads, water supply, water sources, public spaces, public properties, and local economy. The centralized phenomena, including the number of votes in the elections, protests, and silence during the coup d’etat, reflected the failure and weaknesses of the national administration. Thus, the development of local administration can be considered as a good lesson in solving conflicts and violence in the nation's politics.
Local Politics and Democracy in Turkey: An Appraisal
Local government and politics in Turkey have been under the tutelary control of the central state. Contrary to the Western republican tradition of autonomous local self-government, local politics in Turkey were created by and for the central state. More recently, however, a municipal movement with a social democratic coloring emerged to put an end to central governmental tutelage. This movement was followed by the rise of a new conservative perspective in the 1980s. A peculiar synthesis of technical reason and traditional nationalism was the main characteristic of Turkish new conservatism, which identified local political problems with technical problems of urban management. This approach has been adopted by the party of political Islam, now controlling major metropolitan areas and most smaller towns in central and eastern Turkey; this party tries to resynthesize technical reason and Islamic traditions. Whether Turkey will walk on the path toward more decentralized and participatory political organization or jump into a new and stronger authoritarianism depends on the respective political capabilities of these three trends.
The uprising of the marginalised: a socio-economic perspective of the Syrian uprising
More than three years after the outbreak of protests in a number of Arab countries, the role of socio-economic factors in these events is attracting more attention. One of the cases that needs more research is Syria. More than three years into the Syrian uprising, the socio-economic roots of the protest movement that became one of the bloodiest civil conflicts in the history of the Middle East need to be examined. While it has been observed that the Syrian uprising, contrary to some ‘Arab Spring’ countries, has been an uprising of more marginalised social groups with a strong role played by poorer segments in the society, particularly rural and rural-to-urban migrants, the socio-economic explanation for this is still underdeveloped. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of this issue by examining the political and socio-economic compromise that underlined the rule of the Ba’th party in Syria for four decades and unpacking how a combination of internal and external shifts that started in the 1990s and intensified in the 2000s led to the erosion of this compromise, providing the background to the events that began in 2011.