Civil Society and Nonprofit Organizations in Thailand
Paiboon Wattanasiritham1 and Gawin Chutima2
1. The Civil Society in Thailand
In Thailand, the term "civil society" is understood differently among different people. This implies that when we use it in this country, it cannot be taken for granted that the user and the audience understand about the same thing. The Thai term, Prachasangkhom (literally "people's society"), which is supposed to be the literal translation of "civil society" is not formalized. It can be used for at least three main different things:
The first and most widely used meaning, the society as a whole is divided into three sectors―the state, the market (corporate, business or profit-making sector) and civil society. So "civil society" and "civil society sector" (Park Prachasangkhom) are used interchangeably as implying the same thing: that is "a broad range of social institutions that operate outside the confines of the market and the state," all of which could be called "civil society organizations" (CSOs). Civil society in this meaning is also known variously as the "nonprofit," "voluntary," "third" or "independent" sector.
The second definition is that "civil society" is simply the non-state sector. In this context, it also covers the market, corporation, business or profit-making organizations. This definition was once used by Thirayuth Boonmee, a leading social thinker/critic, in his book, Sangkhom Khemkhaeng (Strong Society). It is also used in the Philippines and by members of CIVICUS, the World Alliance for Citizen Participation.
Civil society in the third main concept implies the society as a whole that is civilised. In a civil (ised) society, the power structure is balanced with the public sector (government), business sector and "people's sector" or "social sector" or "civil society sector," as used by several Thai authors (see Anuchart Poungsomlee and Kritaya Archavanitkul eds. 1999). Composition of "civil society" under this concept also varies to the extreme. Some see civil society narrowly to be the Movement of NGOs (non-governmental organizations), while others include even the Judiciary, the Press, the Parliament and Local Council, the Independent Accountability Organizations in this sector along side Civil Society Organizations which also covers political parties, Chamber of Commerce and criminal gangs (Anuchart, Arporn and Pirapat, 1999).
Without going deeply into related details and debates which could be confusing, this paper will adopt the first concept as mentioned above.
Observation and studies then show that civil society in Thailand shares some common features with that in other countries all around the world as found by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project3.
In particular, they are:
・Organizations, i.e., they have an institutional presence and structure;
・Private, i.e. they are institutionally separate from the state;
・Not profit distributing, i.e. they do not return profits to their managers or to a set of "owners;"
・Self-governing, i.e. they are fundamentally in control of their own affairs; and
・Voluntary, i.e. membership in them is not legally required and they attract some level of voluntary contribution of time or money.4
As in other countries, in Thailand this set of institutions then still includes within it a bewildering array of entities―welfare associations, professional organizations, social clubs, environmental groups, cremation associations, human fights organizations, sports clubs, scholarship-giving foundations, hospitals, universities and many more.
