THE RELATIONS BETWEEN STATE AND NONSTATE ACTOR: A CASE STUDY OF PROJECT CHILDHOOD IN THAILAND (2010-2014)

Abstract

Tourism has a big contribution in Thailand's GDP. However, the problem of Child Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism (CSETT) has emerge alongside the benefit of tourism. This problem is also occur in its neighboring countries. Since 2010-2014, Mekong sub-region has been developing a cooperation project called Project Childhood to eradicate CSETT. This cooperation involved state and non-state actors, such as Thailand, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Cambodia, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), INTERPOL and World Vision. Thailand will be the focus of discussion in this thesis as it known as common destination for travelling child sex offenders. The thesis will analyze how the implementation of Project Childhood in Thailand can influence the relations between Thailand and involving actors which may also influence their effort in combating CSETT. Transnational Relations theory will be used to explains the consequences of increase interactions of the actors involve in the Project Childhood. Moreover, the qualitative method is used to explain the findings. Using the qualitative method on secondary data analysis, the results shows that there are four consequences happened in the implementation of Project Childhood which influence the relations between Thailand and involving actors. These consequences are results from the increase transnational interactions and organizations. These four consequences are; promoting attitude change; 2) promotion of international pluralism; 3) creating dependency and interdependence and; 4) the emergence of transnational organizations with a private foreign policy that can actively contradict or intervene with state policies. Furthermore, the increase relations between Thailand and other involving actors have helped Thailand Government to strengthen Thai legal framework and enforcement, promoting national and regional cooperation, and addressing the child victims as the main focus of case investigation regarding CSEC in general and CSETT in particular.