Developing the Model of Civil Society’s Participation and Inspection to Local Administrative Organizations in Loei Province

Abstract

This research aimed to study the problem and causes of civil society’ s participation and inspection to Local Administrative Organizations’ operation in Loei province, exploring the factors effecting the participating and inspecting and developing the model of participating and inspecting. Mixed method research was applied with the in-depth interview of 10 key informants and quantitative study by stratified random sampling. A total of 485 cases were sampled including the electoral voters and the member of 10 local councilors in five districts of Loei province. The rating scale of questionnaire was employed as research instrument, which were leveled at 0.98 of reliability. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique were adopted for statistical testing with LISREL version 8.30.

          The findings revealed that 1) Civil society in Loei province had lacked participating and inspecting and less active to local administrative organizations’ operation. Most people would rather perform for getting benefits from state agencies and usually being organized by state officials or politicians. Some mass medias were dominated by politicians or civil servants, and involved in bribery and graft. Moreover, some monitoring and supervising agencies were powerless for law enforcement to the officials accused of illegal wrongdoings. However, the situation of civil society’s participating and inspecting to local administrative organizations in Loei province had improved because of the increasing role of social medias, civil societies and new opened laws. The general people had participated and inspected to the local administrative organizations’ operation by medium level ( = 3.46). On the other hand, the civil society had participated and inspected to the local organizations’ operation by high level ( = 3.54. 2) The factors of Civil Society, People’s Political Culture, Structure Law and Policy, Leadership, and Interest and Stakeholders were statistical significantly correlated with the Civil Society’s Participation and Inspection to local administrative organizations in Loei province by high level and nearly high level (r = 0.91, 0.85, 0.84, 0.78, 0.77) respectively. 3) The five factors could collectively explain the civil society’s participation and inspection to the local administrative organizations’ operation in Loei province by 85 percent.