SOCIO-POLITICAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE STRUCTURAL EQUILIBRIUM OF AUTHORITY AMONG THE EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE, AND JUDICIAL BRANCHES IN THAILAND'S PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM

บทคัดย่อ

This research aims to 1. analyze the socio-political and cultural factors affecting the structural equilibrium of authority among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches within Thailand's parliamentary system, and 2. examine the compound effects of these factors on the functioning of checks and balances. The study employs a qualitative research design using qualitative institutional analysis. Data were collected through documentary research and in-depth interviews, twenty key informants were purposively selected, comprising political scientists, legal scholars specializing in public and constitutional law, and politicians. Data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis and interpretative analysis. Triangulation was applied to enhance the credibility of the findings.

The findings reveal that the imbalance of power among the three branches is deeply rooted in socio-political and cultural factors operating as a mutually reinforcing cycle. Four principal factors were identified: 1. guardianship democracy, in which extra-constitutional actors — particularly the military — have repeatedly reshaped political structures, undermining horizontal accountability among democratic institutions, 2. patronage culture and weak party institutionalization, which hollow out the legislature as an autonomous oversight body by rendering MPs structurally dependent on party leaders holding executive power, 3. deep ideological polarization, which transforms institutional checks from neutral accountability mechanisms into instruments of political warfare, and 4. constitutional discontinuity, whereby frequent constitutional replacement prevents the institutionalization of accountability norms and interrupts institutional learning. These factors interact to produce a “low-level equilibrium” in which checks and balances remain nominally intact but operate selectively and substantively constrained.