The thesis examines the state of Thai police administration by analysing the opinions of senior and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in the Royal Thai Police about the recommendations of the country’s Police Reform Committee (PRC), 2006—2007. Opinions were collected by means of a countrywide survey and face-to-face interviews in metropolitan police stations in Bangkok and urban and rural stations in Surat Thani in the South and Chang Mai in the North. The survey was clustered and stratified by station size, operation section and officer rank. The final sample matched national profiles. Interviews were conducted with the Chief and one NCO from each operations section of each police station. Interviews were also conducted with senior members of the PRC itself about the reasoning behind the committee’s recommendations, including the Head of the PRC. The PRC’s priorities were: devolving administration, budgets and personnel management; increasing accountability by an Independent Complaints’ Committee and Bureau Police Policy Committees; and civilianization. PRC deliberations were framed by the question, How could more open and participatory policing be achieved? Priorities of decentralization and accountability were seen as clearing the ground for development of community-oriented approaches longer-term. From serving officers’ and PRC members’ accounts the key barriers to reform were political interference and nepotism, especially corruption of the annual cycle of nominations, transfer and promotions. Local policing often involved more interference by informal networks of officials, politicians and business-interests, which badly affected the workings of police station committees too. Thai police administration remains centralized and essentially unchanged, despite more controversy and scandal in the period 2006-2011. The PRC’s aim to adapt ‘democratic’ models to the Thai context failed. The dilemma for the PRC had been that although its reform strategies were well-founded its establishment was politically motivated. It was not immune to interference by competing political factions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:558655 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Poothakool, Krisanaphong |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=186909 |
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