Civil society and policy advocacy in Thailand : the role of advocacy coalitions in the establishment of the nationan human rights commission, 1990-2000

Abstract

This study analyses the emerging civil society in Thailand and seeks to explain the role of advocacy coalitions in the public policy debate surrounding the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission during the period of 1990-2000. The Advocacy Coalition Framework of Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith serves as the theoretical basis of the analysis. It is hypothesized that to attribute the success of the inclusion of constitutional provisions for a National Human Rights Commission to a strong and powerful civil society coalition would be to overestimate the level of maturity, efficacy and public policy advocacy performance of these coalitions. Not only is human rights policy advocacy in Thailand in its infancy, but it is also heavily controlled by an urban, intellectual elite. Results showed the development of human rights policy through three key periods: prior to 1992 a period of almost complete absence of government policy on human rights and social unrest, 1992-1997 the period of political reform constitution drafting and 1997-2000 the period of drafting the organic law on the National Human Rights Commission. The study identified two major policy subsystems, namely the political reform subsystem, and the National Human Rights Commission subsystem which developed out of the first. True to the hypothesis of Sabatier and Jenkins Smith, the coalitions both for and against political reform and the National Human Rights Commission showed remarkable consistency over time. The study found that although the National Human Rights Commission was successfully included in the 1997 Constitution, it cannot be considered a public policy victory. The unique situation of the Constitutional Drafting Assembly and the 1997 economic crisis allowed civil society actors to manipulate personal contacts and the parliamentary committee system to secure a place at the bargaining table. The establishment of the National Human Rights Commission was secured almost by a ‘technicality’ rather than as a result of a successful campaign which fundamentally changed the belief systems of the dominant elite leadership. Policy-oriented learning was not a significant factor in affecting policy change. The results confirm the hypothesis of inexperienced civil society groups which mirror dominant urban-elite patterns in Thai society.