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Abstract
This research was a study of the political culture of the inhabitants of the Songkhla
Lagoon basin, focusing on the process of political socialization and the political inclination
of the inhabitants of the Songkhla Lagoon basin during the period before the existence of the
National Plans of Economic and Social Development (1892-1961) and after the inception
of the said Plans until the year 1997. The findings of the study appear as follows.
The political socialization of the inhabitants of the Songkhla Lagoon basin went through these
important social institutions: family institution, religious institution, educational institution, economic
institution, mass-media institution, and political and government institution. It had been cultivated and
accumulated as the culture of worldviews and the political culture of the inhabitants of the Songkhla
Lagoon basin. Several major tools or media were employed by the social institutions for cultural
transmission and transfer, for example, the way of production of the family institution, systems of social
relations, forms of conscience, as evident in lullabies, or boat songs, or consolation songs, and local
literatures. The educational institution, once the function of the religious and family institutions, was no
longer served by the religious institution, which lost its status and role in education with the coming of
schools for the masses, secondary schools of sub-districts, districts, and provinces, colleges, universities,
or other institutions of higher education, state and private, open as well as restricted admissions, at local,
regional, national, and international levels. The religious institution had theretofore had its important
roles in education, arts and sciences, in habit cultivation and inculcation of virtues, ethics, and morals,
as the rallying point of people’s spirits and the center of community or society, making use of religious
principles, traditions, and rituals to implant life conventions. Later the role of the religious institution
was reduced to mere cultivation of morals and virtues based on religious principles and to transmission
of rituals. Of late the religious institution had weakened and the faith of adherents declined to leave only
religious rites and occult beliefs. The mass media institution in early days consisted of folk media of
shadow play, Nora, ballad songs, and boat songs to entertain, give information, educate, and cultivate
traditional conventions. Later the folk media were replaced by the roles of modern mass media and
entertainment made up of movie, music, radio broadcasting, television, and the Internet. The political and
governmental institution of the past was government of the central authority or royal capital, masters of
localities and chief towns of the age of “town exploitation-town overtaking” down to the periods of town
master, royal servant, provincial governor, and the “CEO” period, in the names of official institutions
that created for southerners a worldview of golden line that reflected a biased political inclination
against the power of state. And so communities changed to bandits’ lairs that developed into “liberating
warriors of the people” in a war to recover the nation toward independence and democracy in the name
