Graduate Review of Political Science and Public Administration Journal

A Study of Power Relations between Local Administration and Local Government: A Case Study of the Roles and Responsibilities of Subdistrict Headmen and Village Headmen in Phichai District, Uttaradit Province

Tirathum Kasemruangvitt — 2026-06-29

Local Administration and Local Government are key mechanisms for governance and development at the grassroots level in Thailand. In practice, the two systems operate collaboratively under different roles and authorities: subdistrict headmen and village headmen serve as local administrative actors and as links between the state and the people, while local government organizations are responsible for budgeting, development planning, and public service delivery. This study aimed to: 1) examine the power relations between local administration and local government; 2) investigate the relationship between the authority and functions of subdistrict headmen and village headmen and local government organizations in area development in Phichai District, Uttaradit Province; and 3) propose guidelines for improving the roles and authority of subdistrict headmen and village headmen in local development. A qualitative research design was employed, using documentary research and in-depth interviews with key informants, followed by content analysis. The findings show that the relationship between local administration and local government in Phichai District is both parallel and interdependent, while also involving cooperation, negotiation, mutual dependence, and conflict in different contexts. Local administration plays a major role in government, public order, mediation, and state–society linkage, whereas local government plays a leading role in budgeting, development planning, and service provision. The study also found overlapping responsibilities, differing development perspectives, and power competition in some areas. It concludes that clearer role delineation, stronger coordination mechanisms, and cooperative area-based development are essential for improving local governance and promoting sustainable community benefits.

Reimagining the Mekong: Historical Continuities, Hydraulic Power and Geopolitical Reconfigurations

Pietro Fasola — 2026-06-29

This article reconstructs the historical evolution of the Mekong River as a space of political authority, cultural articulation, and geopolitical reconfiguration from the first century CE to the contemporary Indo-Pacific framework. Rather than treating the Mekong as a passive geographical backdrop or a purely strategic resource, the study conceptualizes the river as a structuring axis through which different models of sovereignty, legitimacy, and connectivity have been historically articulated. The central argument is that the Mekong has functioned across successive historical periods as a relational continuum in which ecological mediation, spatial imagination, and political authority remain inseparable; and that understanding contemporary hydropolitical tensions requires tracing this layered trajectory rather than treating each period in isolation. From the early hydraulic civilizations of Funan, Chenla, and Angkor, where political authority was grounded in ecological mediation and cosmological order, to the epistemological reconfiguration introduced by European expansion, the Mekong has continuously functioned as more than a river. It has been a medium through which power was produced, contested, and symbolically legitimized. French colonial exploration in the nineteenth century institutionalized the river as a cartographic and administrative object, transforming relational spatiality into territorial abstraction. The twentieth century layered militarization and developmental technocracy upon this colonial framework, while the post-Cold War era has witnessed the emergence of hydropolitical asymmetries and infrastructural geopolitics, particularly in relation to Chinese dam construction and regional connectivity corridors. Drawing on a longue durée analytical framework and integrating historiographical, political-ecological, and geopolitical literatures, this study offers an original contribution by bridging premodern hydraulic sovereignty and contemporary Indo-Pacific strategic competition within a single interpretive arc: an integration that existing Mekong scholarship, often compartmentalized by period or discipline, has not yet fully achieved. By adopting a longue durée perspective, this article argues that connectivity in the Mekong basin is not a modern invention but a historically embedded condition. What distinguishes the contemporary period is not the existence of interdependence itself, but its intensification through technological mediation, environmental stress, and geopolitical competition. Reimagining the Mekong as a relational continuum enables a more historically grounded understanding of sovereignty, infrastructure, and ecological fragility in mainland Southeast Asia.

The Role of Local Politicians in the Competition for Executive and Subdistrict Council Positions in Pa Phai Subdistrict, Li District, Lamphun Province, during the Election of March 28, 2021

Pongsakorn Toonwong — 2026-06-29

This article analyzes the topic of local politicians in the competition for executive and council positions in Pa Phai Subdistrict, Li District, Lamphun Province during the election on 28 March 2021 aimed to: 1) Study the history of the relationship between local politicians and groups in Pa Phai Subdistrict, Li District, Lamphun Province. 2) Study the role of political groups during the campaign for executive and council members in Pa Phai Subdistrict, Li District, Lamphun Province. This was a qualitative study by selecting specific key informants by interviewing them. local politicians, community leaders, housewives, public health volunteers, and the elderly, totaling 10 people. The results of the study found that the history of the relationship between local politicians and groups in each group of politicians had different origins and goals. Mostly local people and were known to the general public or were members of a group within the community, such as community leaders, housewives, etc., which were often found from participating in various activities within the community. They came together with the aim of working for the people and wanted to develop the Pa Phai Subdistrict Municipality area. Analysis of the role of political groups during the campaign for executive and council members in Pa Phai Subdistrict, Li District, Lamphun Province, it was found that the election campaigns of each local politician group were similar. People chose candidates who were widely known and had outstanding achievements. Meanwhile, local politicians tried to distribute candidates to every village so that they could help campaign and introduce each village to get to know each candidate. They also proposed policies and concepts for working on development to cover all aspects, whether it was policy setting, community potential, focusing on understanding and developing towards sustainable goals, such as policies related to infrastructure.

Moral Multipolarity and the Behavioural Architecture of Trust: How Asian States Contest Western Selective Legitimacy

Federico Verri — 2026-06-29

Asian states invoke the language of multipolarity to very different ends, yet we still lack a clear account of the mechanisms that would let their legitimacy claims take hold. This article asks how Asian states create, maintain, and mobilise legitimacy under Western accusations of selective moralism — and through which mechanisms such claims might become behaviourally consequential. It pursues three objectives. The first is theoretical: to specify the micro-foundations that constructivist accounts of civilisational contestation tend to leave unopened, and to be explicit about what behavioural political economy adds beyond them — not as a rival to constructivism but as the mechanism layer beneath it, treating legitimacy as an asset that is invested in, accumulated, and depreciated. The second is a structured plausibility probe: through focused comparison across official discourse, foreign-policy doctrine, and secondary indicators for China, Iran, and Indonesia — with the Gulf Cooperation Council states as a deliberately divergent comparator — it maps the channels through which these states supply alternative legitimacy: civilisational framing, procedural sovereignty signalling, and selective reciprocity. The third is applied: it converts the framework into testable hypotheses about audience uptake and draws out implications for governance, security, and education. The central finding is bounded on purpose. The evidence demonstrates the supply of legitimacy claims and the configuration of channels across cases; on discourse data alone it does not, and cannot, demonstrate uptake — acceptance or behavioural compliance. Those mechanisms are therefore advanced as falsifiable hypotheses awaiting survey and experimental test. The contribution is a comparative framework that separates legitimacy supply from uptake and specifies how each could be measured.

Book Review Deities and Divas ไสยเวท เพศ ผี: ร่างทรงองค์เควียร์ในอุษาคเนย์

Netsakao Pliaoplot — 2026-06-29