The Dynamics of Concepts and Practices of Thai Civil Society in Natural Resource Management after B.E. 2549

Abstract

This research aims to study the dynamics of the concepts and practices of Thai civil society in natural resource management after B.E. 2549. The study focuses on three types of work, namely: advocating community land title deeds, opposing repatriation of forest policy, and solving forest and land problems of The Land Reform Network of Thailand (LRNT) and The People's Movement for a Just Society (P-Move) in the political, economic, and social contexts after the B.E. 2549 coup.  There are political conflicts and government instability. The resolution of the civil society movement on land and forest resources has not made any progress. While the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2550 contained provisions on community rights, it was a positive factor for civil society to negotiate with the state. Until the coup in 2014, the National Council for Peace and Order promulgate the interim constitution used powers to restrict people's liberties and managed resources that created negative effect on the people. The study found that the community rights is a central concept that civil society movements have been using for fighting with the state in natural resource management, especially in the forest and land problems in the three cases mentioned above. In practice, the study founded that civil society movements use forward infiltration strategies through the politics of influence by resisting, lobbying, and providing information by the social movements to pressure the state to respond with the problem. Meanwhile, The government responded by backward infiltration with the Politic of Substitution through the Prime Minister's Office Regulations on the National Land Committee of B.E.2557.