Categorisation and Significance of the Problems Affecting the Possibilities in the Formulation of the Policy on the Establishment of Special Administrative Organisation of “Nakhon Mae Sot”

Abstract

This research has an objective to study the significance of the problems, a total of 28, occurred in the formulation of the policy to establish a special administrative organisation of Nakhon Mae Sot, Tak, and recategorise the problems, in order to test whether and how each category of the problems affects the formulation of the policy to establish Nakhon Mae Sot special administrative organisation, by means of quantitative methodologies; collecting data through questionnaires circulated amongst the sample group of 70 attending the public seminars on approaches to drive the special administrative organisation of “Nakhon Mae Sot”, and analysing the data using statistics of mean to determine the order of significance of the problems, multiple regression analysis to examine the relationships between the problems and the possibilities in the establishment and factor analysis to reduce and recategorise the problem factors according to the findings, with the level of statistical significance defined at .05. The result has revealed that the problem category to which the sample group gave highest significance in the formulation of the policy to establish the special administrative organisation of Nakhon Mae Sot was the issue of frequent changes in government impacting the establishment of “Nakhon Mae Sot”; followed by the formulation of principles that would be used in the policy to establish “Nakhon Mae Sot”, that is, border trade and alien worker management, both of which requiring great delicateness to the execution thereof, so precautions should be taken if the local are to be allowed to self-administrate. Additionally, the recategorisation of the problems has resulted in 7 categories of problems; 1) issues of participation of the people within the zone, 2) issues from advocacy groups and supports from other parties, 3) issues from objectives, values, and principles of the policy formulation, 4) issues from the primary target group in the formulation of the policy, 5) issues originated from political feasibility, 6) issues from policy advocates, and 7) issues from the publication of news and information, status and city planning of Mae Sot, and it has been found that each of the aforesaid categories also affects the possibilities in the formulation of the policy to establish the special administrative organisation of Nakhon Mae Sot, Tak, in respective order of various degrees, 1-7, as seen above. Hence, the government, local administrative organisations, and relevant agencies should give a serious consideration to the issues of participation of the people in special local administration, so as to correspond to the visions of modern social trends, such as the emphasis on building educational opportunities and learning about proper participation, instillation through encouragement of creative gatherings of the local people to conduct various aspects of developmental activities, and formation of learning exchange networks in a serious manner, which would lead to reinforcement of power of the people, so as to achieve sustainable development trends.