This research aimed to: study the development of local government
management in Thailand, critique the old local government management models, and present a new model of local governance in the context of local administrative organizations in the eastern region. The methodology used in this research was an interdisciplinary approach that crossed fields using qualitative research methods in three formats: documents research, case study research and extracting lessons learned from previous research.
The results of this research found that the development of local
government management in Thailand was divided into two major eras, the era of
local government from 1897-1997 and the era of local governance from 1997-2021.
The critique of the models for these forms of local government found four obstacles
which included: obstacles to use of public power by monism, obstacles to
representative democracy, obstacles to development of proper bureaucratization,
and obstacles of stagnation in decentralization. This research proposed a new model
for local governance in the context of local administrative organizations in the
eastern region by taking into account the following principles: reducing centralized
state power, increasing people’s power, increasing the role of participatory
democracy, a new polycentric power structure, self-governance in communities and
the concept of community rights.
