Democratic Governance from Kalama-Sutta-Based Perception of People

Abstract

The objectives of the research were to study the democracy perception of people in Muang Loei district, Loei province, to compare the people’s democracy perception, classified by gender, age, educational level, occupation and salary, and to study the people’s perception of democracy, based on Kalama-Sutta. The study was conducted through the mixed method research (MMR). Key informants were five people. The sample group was a total of 398 people, selected from 97,709 people. The research tool consisted of the five-level rating scale questionnaire, and the in-depth interview for the qualitative research. The data were analyzed by the statistical program for social sciences, including the content analysis and the descriptive explanation. The research findings were as follows: 1. The democracy perception of people in Muang Loei district, Loei province, was totally and separately found to be at a high level (  = 3.87, S.D. = 0.71). Separately considered in the descending order, the aspect with the highest mean score was the rule of law (  = 3.92, S.D. = 0.71), followed by liberty (  = 3.91, S.D. = 0.68), the majority rule (  = 3.90, S.D. = 0.69), equality (  = 3.82, S.D. = 0.77), and sovereignty (  = 3.79, S.D. = 0.74), respectively.  2. The comparison of the people’s democracy perception revealed that the democracy perception of Muang Loei people, classified by their different age, was totally different (F = 3.386, Sig = .010). Separately considered, sovereignty (F = 3.995, Sig = .003), liberty (F = 3.214, Sig = .013), and equality (F = 4.195, Sig = .002) were different. 3. The Kalama-sutta-based perception of democracy demonstrated that the people occupied sovereignty, got an opportunity to participate in politic activities, participated in governing the country directly or indirectly.