In Thailand, the sector has grown from the gap left by the modern state as it cannot fulfil all the expected fatherly roles to protect and provide its citizens as the Absolute Monarchy used to do for its subjects before 1932. It, especially the part whose work involves social development that requires structural changes, has then quickly expanded in the last two decades as the increasingly acceptable alternative to the failing so-called centralized socialist/communist state everywhere, particularly in South East Asia, and strong dissatisfactions over the damages caused by neo-liberal capitalist state-led development. The latter was significantly influenced by the Bretton Woods' institues―International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or the World Bank) and International Monetary Fund (IMF)―and Asian Development Bank (ADB), as professed in Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Plans (NESDPs) since 1960.
To summarize, this phenomenon is not uniquely Thai but rather a civic response to the "crisis of the state," contributing to what could be a "global associational revolution"―a massive upsurge of organized private, voluntary activity that appears to be underway in virtually every part of the world.5 Other factors facilitating the growth of civil society organizations include the expansion of an educated middle class frustrated by the lack of economic and political expression and the communication revolution, particularly information technology.
What the Johns Hopkins Project has discovered in Western Europe and other so-called "developed countries" plus Latin American, Central and Eastern European countries is very similar to situation in Thailand. It describes strength of civil society organizations in terms of their unique position outside the market and the state, their generally smaller scale, their connections to citizens, their flexibility, their capacity to tap private initiative in support of public purposes, and their newly rediscovered contributions to building "social capital."Civil society organizations (CSOs) have surfaced as strategically important participants in this search for a "middle way" between sole reliance on the market and sole reliance on the state.6
2. The Current Situation of NPOs in Thailand7
In Thailand, the English term generally used is not "nonprofit organization" or NPOs but "nongovernmental organization" or NGOs. Actually, the abbreviation "NGOs" has become the word most often used, popularized by the mass media probably because of its shortness even though there are two Thai words used alternately as its equivalent or translation―Ongkarn Ekachon (literally "private organization") and Ongkarn Phatthana Ekachon (literally "private development organization). There is also a Thai abbreviation, Or Phor Chor, but it is not used much even by the NGOs themselves. Because of this fact, NPOs, NGOs and CSOs will be used alternately in this paper to mean the same thing.
2.1 NPOs in Thailand: Their Identity
Firstly, NPOs are not required by law to register with the government or other independent/private agency as is the case in most of the countries. Non-registered organizations are not illegal and people's fight to form groups/organizations is enshrined in the current constitution (1997). Some NPOs and civic networks have been in existence and operating for up to twenty years, being recognized or even funded by the Royal Thai Government or international agencies, without formal legal status. Lack of official status though often bars them from accessing government funds.
Registration with the government, however, gives them an official status as a juristic entity that can perform legal deeds but does not automatically imply their strength as an institution. Registered NPOs can also apply for tax privilege status after observing a set of rules, mostly financial, for three consecutive years. At present, only about 300 NPOs have acquired this status.
