Political Trust of Military in Semi Democratic State

Political trust of military in Semi democratic state

Daralux  Poothong

5705647

Rangsit University International College

IPO 211 Introduction to politics

Chakrit Tiebtienrat

April 17, 2015

INTRODUCTION

        Due to middle class support within Semi Democracy state, military has a high level of social capital and political trust to bring about having an opportunity to intervene in politics. Nowadays, political system in Thailand still remains unstable because of taking turn between elections and seizing power after changing system from absolute monarchy to democracy. No matter how many times Thailand has been through political reformation, we cannot abolish seizing power of militaries. The first reason, middle class trust in military more than government, influenced from an idea that Thailand is not already to get into liberal democracy; the country should lead by a great leader who has morality and fairness and use power to better the country. Nonetheless, do you really think that the military does not cover something behind? One thing that you can see obviously is existence of old elites in the military role. Another reason, there is lots of ‘subject’ in Thai political culture. The majority understands that the politics is a game of elites; they are not a part of it except going to the elections. These two notions are kinds of politically cultural heritage in Thailand which have been socialized over and over again through conversations, political events and even in educations. Regrettably, whatever the military government does right now make the world displease about our position on the world stage. Besides, it realizes that we are abandoning democratic idea and stepping backward to authoritarian state. This situation is not only the elite’s battle, but also class struggles.

Keywords : middle class, political trust, semi democracy, democracy.        

Political Culture is the relations between societies’ members and political system which is identified by the pattern of society’s thinking, beliefs and value (Almond & Verba, cited by Hague & Harrop). It is socialized by a kind of ideology, notion, and belief towards politics. It is produced by the collective history of political processes. They have their own culture in different countries. Political culture is essential because it is a factor determining regime type in particular country, also comprehends policies of each country and predicts following events. Moreover, it is a factor that supports legitimacy of politics. Almond & Verba (1963) divided political culture into three sections; ‘parochial’ is a kind of citizens who do not even understand and participate in political activities; ‘subject’ is a kind of citizens who acknowledge and understand in political situation. Nevertheless, they do not pay attention on participating in political activities. This type is the most of citizens; ‘participation’ is an important section which maintains in political system, it means a kind of citizens who have civic virtue and civic culture, a person who absolutely participate in political events. According to the text, it can demonstrate that each country own distinct culture, also within one country might has varied cultures due to diversity of citizens. That why we cannot judge a country with another country’s culture. Therefore, we cannot judge Asia’s political system by using Western political theory. Sometimes, democracy is not the real democracy because of the way they govern the country is fitted with political culture, such as Singapore. Political culture is also play an important role in political trust and vice visa. Political culture is important for studying about an attitude of citizens, the reason and also the way they behave towards politics.

Political trust is the belief that the governors originate to support the confidence of the governed and serving their interests (Hague & Harrop, 2013, p.96). It identifies the stability of politics especially in Democracy, also characterizes a strong political system. Due to trust facilitate collective action, positive relations and fundamental democratic value. Putnum (2002) said that declining faith in government represents a deflation of the political culture. Trust connects between an individual with others, group with other groups, and institution with sections. Therefore, it creates cooperation in an interior and exterior section when distrust breeds the function does not go fluently, it causes political deflation. In fact, there are a lot of interest groups in politics. That means the government cannot fulfill all of group’s interest unless the entire citizens have the same needed, which is impossible. In addition, it will cause a big problem when you cannot balance the citizens’ interest. Political trust in institution comes from when the institution can complete the commitment and capacity of institution. In other word, citizens will trust the government if they can show their capacity to develop the country and also fulfill the citizens’ needed. After all, the government’s trust can evaluate indirectly through media, in the case that the government does not control the media. Besides, it can verifies by their policies which given before they was elected from the election whether they complete their entire commitment. Furthermore, trust is one indicator of ‘social capital’ which shows how much social capital is reliable. Before people trust something or someone they do not just think to trust them, they use a long time of process to realize something or someone can trust. As Gambetta (1988, cited by Pretty and Smith, 2004) said “Trust takes time to build and is easily broken” (p.633)

        Social capital is collective deeply and widely value of all social network in the ways of tighten the relationship within network and cooperate the group creating benefits within the entire group and the outside. It is a link between interior and exterior group of people. When they gather and create beneficial values towards public, and also maintain their relationship more profound. Social capital originates from “trust” and “norm” which group members generate for making convenience to each other. Woolcock (2001, cited by Pretty and Smith) argued that social capital splits into three patterns; Bonding, when people on the same base, in the same pattern, from the same origin, and have similar background assemble and make values of social capital; Bridging is social capital horizontally connects between different groups which have distinct base and different notion; Linking is vertical connecting between local organization with external organization or superior organization, either to influence their policies or to draw on useful resources. According to analyzing, in order to maintain political stability it should build political capital, which is the idea based on social capital in the politic field. It means the strong bond between citizens and government (Hague & Harrop, 2013, p.97). As you can see of many organization that have positive relationship with public, in other words, have a high level in social capital the process of its achievements are fluently to carry on. The way of creating political capital needs a long time to build up as it needs trust to bond among them. It can explain why just only one party can win the national election because they can own strong relations of all majority citizens in some country.