Validity of Citizen Participation in Thailand Environmental Policy

Abstract

This article studied on the validity of citizen participation in Thailand's environmental policy for describing the citizen participation circumstance concerning the environmental management. The Environmental Quality Management Plan B.E. 2555-2559 (2012-2016), case study, was analyzed and examined both quantitative and qualitative aspect by the descriptive statistics analysis, the levels of citizen participation and the techniques of citizen participation respectively. The results indicated that the citizen participation sphere distributed throughout this policy both in Rationale of Policy, Policy Concept, Policy Principle, Policy Vision, Policy Objective and Policy Strategy. Due to the qualitative analysis, this policy was based on the Tokenism level and the Publicity technique of citizen participation which can be indicated that the policy was designed to persuade and facilitate public support, relating to citizens as passive consumers which only involved to certain extent those are 1) informing, 2) consultation, and 3) placation.