สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Vol. 27 No. 3 Jul.-Sept. 2002 Good Governance : Only the First Step for Thailand ˆÒ Good Governance : Only the First Step for Thailand Chai-Anan Samudavanija Vice-President, the Royal Institute ∫∑§«“¡ æ‘ ‡»… The author reminds us that the current debate on glo- balization and its contribution to good governance can never be clearly resolved. The link between globalization and good governance cannot be defined any more than can the relation- ship between industrialization and democracy. The author also notes that it is a mistake to speak of Thai society as monolithic. He maintains that the Thai population is bifurcated into a private-corporate sector and an agricultural sector, and globalization is the agent of good governance only for the former. Globalizationweakens authoritarian states and harmonizes the world’s legal system. He concludes that so- cial leaders do not need “good governance” but a “good po- litical strategy” if they seek to expand political participation, and to ally the rich and the poor, the urbanized and the rural, the modernized and the traditional. In other words, good governance is good management, but democracy requires a more “people-centered” approach. For democracy, the key is localization, not globalization. Key words : good governance, Thailand sustain itself and expand? The most relevant question is whether economic and political inequali- ties caused by rapid economic de- velopment are temporary and self- correcting. Now we have shifted our con- cern to “Globalization and Good Governance” instead of “Industri- alization and Democracy.” We are asking a new set of questions while the old ones remain unanswered. However, it is now evident that in many countries such as Thailand, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened despite the in- crease in per capita income. We assume that “change” (es- pecially of an economic or techno- logical nature) is automatically transformative and that its effects are totalistic. Our view of “society” is also totalistic, which in reality it is not. There is not one but there are many levels of society. While the flow of capital, technology and information across borders conti- nues to accelerate, the effects on society have been uneven, creating new opportunities and gains, but Twenty years ago we were concerned with a number of ques- tions that are still relevant for our discussion today. At that time, “Industrialization and Democracy” was the central theme of many seminars and conferences, and industrialization was seen as a driv- ing force for democratization. Then, we were puzzled as to why the new amalgam of social and political forces had not been able to consolidate and reshape the character of the state. This question led to others. Are capitalism and democracy re- lated? Is democracy the only al- ternative political framework to support and promote capitalism? In other words, does capitalism and its basic trait – industrializa- tion – need democracy in order to