Abstract Thai researchers use political clientelism and vertical publicity to analysis vote-buying in modern Thailand , and election activities happening in Thai countryside are thought of as the outcome of the weak publicity based on money transaction . But what is the actual fact ? This ethnography shows how the peoples'representatives maintain close links with rural people and how the local headmen help establish links among political party , government departments and the village . Thai Government tries to limit the ways by which the parliamentary candidates keep in touch with the voters , which leads to resistance from the society . Thai rural peoples'election practice embodies the native logic of publicity , which means that citizens always define their citizenship through the relationship with other citizens;the nation is not a fictitious scene , as it projects itself into the daily life and the public life via the communication among citizens . Therefore , this native logic of publicity breaks the citizenship membership- social membership distinction in the Western theories , and can clear up the anxiety caused by the distance between the citizens and the state as well as the estrangement between the individuals and the society . While putting universal understanding on democracy into native practice , intellectuals should face up to various ways of democratic practice which is decided by history , social structure and cultural notions .
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