Historically, Thai women were excluded from political participation either in national or local levels. The 1997 Constitutional reform led to fundamental changes in Thailand’s political system and strengthened women’s representation in high politics. The proportion of seats occupied by women in the national parliament showed less than 10 percent. Recently, the advancement of Thai women in political participation has extensively inspired through discussions and studies of gender politics. In other words, a number of prominent Thai women in decision making processes –female politicians have been encouraged to access to the political sphere. Meanwhile the male political enactment has still been dominant towards their experiences and background characteristics.
Not only did aim to review the role of women’s participation in Thailand, this research also analyzed the factors either supporting or obstructing female political empowerment. So mixed method was designed as the research tool. As the quantitative methodology, 1,500 survey questionnaires were distributed to respondents throughout the country. The Linear Regression (RP2P) was used to analyze the relationship between the dependent variables and independent variables regarding women’s political participation in Thailand. As the qualitative methodology, the data from the interview questions were collected to cover the details of the main research questions.
The findings revealed that both Constitution and political processes were the most crucial factors for Thai women’s empowerment. Accordingly, the non-institutional factors were also the major supporting elements for women’s participation and empowerment; those were, personal leadership, the acceptance from citizens, the context of society, family background, motivation, economic development and the cooperation of the related organizations. Although, the gender stereotype and prejudices had remained the most important barriers for Thai women in politics, the religious belief becomes beneficial in those situations. Regarding the quota system, most interviewees strongly agreed that this measure became a major temporary measure to increase a number of Thai women representatives whereas many respondents focused on the potential of the candidates instead of the gender.
In conclusion, the promotion of Thai women’s political participation requires determined efforts not only by women themselves, but also governments, political parties, mass media, and NGOs. As a result, all levels of the political participation should be concerned by all parties through cooperative working in appropriate measures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/G0103265513 |
| Creators | 李書淳 |
| Publisher | 國立政治大學 |
| Source Sets | National Chengchi University Libraries |
| Language | 英文 |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Rights | Copyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders |
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