Political Movements of the Student Movement with Democracy

Abstract

         This research has objectives to: study the development of students’ political movement demanding for democracy from the past to present, and  propose a students’ political movement trend in the future. This study is considered as a qualitative research in which there are a documentary study, in-depth interviews with 25 key-informants, and a focus group with 12 individuals. The collected data were analyzed by using content analysis and presented in a descriptive manner. The results revealed that: since the revolutionary change in B.E. 2475 onwards, students’ movement has been in the era of dictatorship resulting in a stagnation of students’ forces in its initial stage. The students had almost no significant political role for many years. During B.E. 2510-2520, it could be seen vividly as a development of students’ movement under the dictatorship since a political closure never allowed for political institutes and any other force a chance to emerge. The students’ movements remained only critical bourgeoisie forces leading to political changes. During B.E. 2530-2550, it was found that students’ movement became not only major forces in political changes but also strategic alliances with other political forces that were vegetated to replace. This became a political downturn of students’ movement. At present, students began to take active roles as a small group under the military junta regime. An unfair election led to a large political upheaval with students’ different tactics of fights. And The future political movement trend, it was found that: 1. causal trend, demanding trend and movement tactics trend depends on the condition of political opportunity structure, 2. resource mobilization trend depends on the righteousness of the claims.