INTEGRATION OF BUDDHADHARMA PRINCIPLES TO PROMOTE DEMOTE POLITICAL CULTURE OF PEOPLE IN SAMUT SONGKHRAM PROVINCE

Abstract

Objectives of this research were: 1To study political culture,
2. To study factors that influenced political culture in a democratic regime, 3. To present the integration of Buddhist principles to promote political culture in a democratic regime among people in Samut Songkhram Province, conducted by the mixed research methods. The qualitative research, data were collected by in-depth interviewing 18 key informants and analyzed by content descriptive interpretation. The quantitative research, data were collected using questionnaires with reliability value equal to 0.892 from 399 samples who were the people in Samut Songkhram Province. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and stepwise multiple regression analysis.

The research results were found that 1. People’s political culture was at high level. People gave importance to reason rather than people, knowing how to compromise, respecting majority and minority, having discipline from religious way of life, and being responsible for the public through participation in community activities, which are continuously shaped by family, school, and monasteries. 2. Institutional factors of political nurturing affect political culture in a democracy, which can be explained by 48.5 percent, consisting of peer groups, political institutions, and professional groups, and the principle of Saraniyadhamma affected the promotion of political culture in a democratic regime of people in Samut Songkhram Province, which can be explained by 69.2 percent with statistically significant level of 0.01. 3. The integration of Buddhist principles promoted political culture in a democratic regime of people in Samut Songkhram Province to a high level, especially the principle of Saraniyadhamma, such as Metta-kayakamma, Metta-vacikamma, and Metta-manokamma, which helped create respect for reason, reduce conflict, and enhance transparency, while the principles of Sila-samanyata and Ditthi-samanyata helped reduce corruption, promote participation, and make decisions fairly.