Formal network between the sites and local communities

As discussed in Chapter 2, waste treatment is considered as a public service of local governance in Thai perspective. Therefore, the main channel of local benefit distribution and information exchange should be a formal social network, which has be called as the organisation network. In this research, this kind of network is defined as a group of formal linkages between two organisations or between organisations and individuals. Such linkages are established by regulations or laws that give duties and authorities to positions or organisations in public service.

In this research, (1) local communities, (2) waste treatment sites, and (3) public administrative organisation are focused actors. Therefore, a formal network refers to groups of administrative linkages between organisations or between organisations and the local community, and it is also referred to as linkages between the site to administrative organisations or official committee by contracts. Such networks have a static structure in terms of the hierarchy of power and members in the network. Moreover, the direction of resource flow is also fixed. Resources of such networks are mostly predictable and in the form of collective goods, such as local budget, infrastructure, or taxes. The below table is a summary of formal structure and resources flow in three case studies.

Table 6.3: Comparison between formal linkages and resource transfer in three case studies Case Formal linkages Member Resources

Nonthaburi Nonthaburi PAO – Klong Kwang TAO

Klong Kwang people

Local benefit: Extra budget,

infrastructure, waste treatment fee per tons

Information: Annual meeting and complaint to government organisations and grievance letters

Nonthaburi PAO – Klong Kwang people

Local farmers whose rice paddies got destroyed by contaminated water

Local benefit: Compensation in form of fertilise, or seed Information: public hearing

Phuket Phuket municipality – the joint

committee of Phuket waste treatment site

Every member of Saphanhin and Klong Hoh Pee communities

Local benefit: Compensation to fish farms for dioxin leaking, masks, and health check-ups

Information: Annual plan PJT Company – the

joint committee of Phuket waste treatment site

Every member of Saphanhin and Klong Hoh Pee communities

Local benefit: Community fun, scholarship, community supports Information: Daily pollution report

Phitsanulok There are small linkages between Phitsanulok municipality and Buengkok TAO

Buengkok People Information: Public hearing when MOU memorandum of understanding need to be renewed

It can be seen from the table that in the Nonthaburi case, there were strong formal linkages between the site owner and the Nonthaburi PAO with local communities directly and through Klong Kwang TAO. These formal linkages brought local benefit in the form of extra budget, infrastructures, and waste treatment fee to Klong Kwang TAO. The direct linkage between the PAO and the local individual also allowed compensation to be transferred to local people who were affected by contaminated water. Information exchange is mostly operated by official methods, such as a complaint through government office or sending a grievance letter. Besides, the community meeting every month is also a time where the PAO or the waste treatment site can give information on the sites to local people. Because most of the local benefit from formal linkages came in the form of collective benefits, such as new roads or extra budget, everyone in Tambon Klong Kwang benefitted. This means everyone in Tambon Klong Kwang are a member of the formal networks, including even new residents who know no one in Tambon Klong Kwang. In the Phuket case, the joint committee between PJT Company, local communities, and Phuket municipality played the crucial role of resource distribution in the network. This joint committee are consider as formal network between stakeholders of the waste treatment site. Compensation, annual plans, and health check-up were the only resources provided by the Phuket municipality.

Most financial and information resources were provided by PJT Company, such as scholarship, community fund, community support, and daily report for pollution. All of these resources went to every member of the local community as a collective benefit, which is the same as the case of Nonthaburi. Lastly, there are few linkages between the Phitsanulok municipality and the Beungkok

TAO, which is a local administrative organisation of local people around the Phitsanulok municipal waste treatment site. Phitsanulok municipality had promised some resource transfer in the form of public facilitates, such as sports field or parks. However, in the end, because of the law, this resource transfer did not happen. For information exchanges, there were no information exchanges in general. The Bueng Kok TAO did not even have a map of the waste treatment site.

However, the Phitsanulok municipality would get feedback from public hearing, which set when MOU for the waste treatment site had to be renewed or when local people demonstrated.

Structure of formal linkages in three case studies are related directly with the administrative organisation, for example, PAO or sub-district administrative organisation. Member of the official networks fit perfectly with the citizens in administrative units, such as a sub-district or a community. In other words, local people in the same territory can access the resource equally in the formal network. For resources, most of the local benefits that have been transferred through formal resources are a collective benefit, such as roads, water supplies, or community funds. Only the compensation is transferred directly to local individuals. For information exchanges, in this kind of network, the exchanges go through official tools. For example, information about the site always goes to the community in the form of a report within a strict period, such as a daily report or an annual plan; feedbacks from the community to the site is always carried officially, such as grievance letters or public hearings. From the tools of information exchanges, we can see that member of the network at the local level can access to information equally.