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การประชุมวิชาการ
สถาบันพระปกเกล้า ครั้งที่ 16 45

want larger space for themselves. People want to participate in the affairs of the
state but they have not had a chance to because the bureaucracy was centralized.

Governors were appointed from here, police inspectors were appointed from here,
district officers were appointed from here, judges were appointed from here, attorneys
were appointed from here. All functionaries of the state were appointed from the

center of power, including the military personnel all around the country. You know
what happened then? At the end of the financial crisis, about 2544 B.E [2001 C.E],

the frustration around the country was articulated, was expressed in the form of a
political storm, riding on the coattails of the promise that we are going to deliver
justice, we are going to deliver better equality of education, of health care to the

people. But what happened after that storm of expectation, of the people in the
countryside, in the peripheries? Once the group that promised a new vision for

Thailand, a new decentralized Thailand, a new equitable Thailand got into power in
Bangkok. It turned around and co-opted that centralized bureaucracy itself. So, the
bureaucracy had become an instrument of control/oppression even further. - “มันกลายเป็น

องค์กรและหน่วยงานที่ใช้ระบบอุปถัมภ์เข้าไปควบคุม จัดการ แต่งตั้ง เลื่อน ปลด ย้าย”
It became a family affair. So, meanwhile the whole country was going through this

economic transformation. Growth, growth, growth! And what happened? We have
been on this road of national development for the last five decades, but the gap
between the rich and the poor in this country is going even bigger, bigger and bigger.

The richest 20 percent of the country owns 90 percent of the land whereas the
poorest 20 percent owns the remaining 10 percent. The proportion of income between

Bangkok and the peripheries is seven times difference. In this situation, it is very
difficult to have an equitable system of governance that people feel that they are
empowered, that they are part of the governance, that they can get what they want

through the electoral process. They are only the stepping stones to power. So, for the
last thirteen years, that has been the case. People in the countryside have grown up,

people in the countryside have become rich, people in the countryside felt that they
want to take part in the governance of the country. They did not have a chance to.
Accumulation of power! For the sake of power! For the sake of accumulating further

wealth, corruption, systematic corruption, policy corruption. All these things have been
made possible because of the centralized nature of the state. And because the power

that came through the electoral process, Professor Steven Levitsky at Harvard
University called this kind of electoral politics “Competitive Authoritarianism,” meaning
you can have the elections, political parties, parliament, institutions, like constitutions,

but every time you have the elections, we win. That’s the crux of the problem in the
last few months, leading to the coup on the 22nd of May, 2014. So, the items that