This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) will take the first steps toward creating a long term working relationship between American and Thai scholars studying the village-level impact of constitutional change and free trade agreements in the Mekong trade zone of Northern Thailand. The latest constitutional changes in Thailand have introduced important democratic reforms, including decentralization of power. These changes, motivated in part by a desire to control rampant government corruption, promote devolution of power to local units of government. Devolution is intended to increase trust and democratic participation. Inspiration for democratization and devolution is partly international; the US constitution has provided one model but by no means the only one. But as a philosophy guiding governmental organization and participation, democracy plays a significantly different role in Thailand from the US; as one scholar has put it, democracy is a philosophy of dissent, not a philosophy of governance, and dissenting parties who advocate democratization have tended to support oligarchy and patronage as a basis for governance once they acquire power. The work proposed here will lead to the formation of a long-term collaborative research relationship, articulation of a research plan, and submission of a proposal to NSF for research funding.
