Abstract:
The objectives of this research were to study the unique characteristics of electoral constituencies in Greater Bangkok, people's knowledge and understanding of the new electoral system of the New Constitution of Thailand promulgated in B.E. 2540, the factors affecting the eligible voters in their vote casting decisions and the political behavior of electorates affected by electoral constituencies after the spatial patterns had changed.Questionnaires were administered to a sample of 1,300 people from 12 selected electoral constituencies, The collected data were statistically processed and analyzed through SPSS for windows computer programming for percentage and Chi-squarc. Furthermore, the technique of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used for cartographic representation of the constituenciesThe analytical results were as follows:1 In the analysis of the unique characteristics of the electoral constituencies which were shapes, sizes and physical, social and environmental, the results were the a) It was found that after the revision of electoral constituencies in B.E2541, the shapes 'were compact, prorupted and elongated. The compact shape consisted of electoral constituencies of 14th , 26th, 28th , 31st and 33rd The elongated shape composed electoral constituencies of 16th,20th 25th 34Thand35th. The prorupted shape illustrated by the electoral constituencies of 19th and 32ndb).The sizes of the selected constituencies could be categorized into 6 sizes:miniature (5-20Km2 ) for the 28th and 32nd , very small (2 1-40km2) for the 14th . 19th , 20th , 31st , small (41 -80k2 ) for the 16th and 34th moderate (81-120m2 ) for the 26th large (120-200km2) for the 35th and giant (301-- 400km2) for the 25th without the very large size (201-300 km2)c) In tenns of the physical and social milieu in Greater Bangkok in relation to the shape and size of the electoral constituencies the results suggested that distance, transportation to the polling station including social elements and community locations played an important role in the electorates' decisions.2. It could be summarized from the data obtained from the questionnaires that differences in political attitude, political participation and the policies of the political parties are reflected by differences in gender, age, occupation, religion and educational background of the electorates. These, therefore, affected their political behavior of vote casting.3. It was found that the B.E. 2544 electoral constituencies were smaller than those in BE. 2539, and that the power bases for the Thai Rak Thai party became much stronger than those for the Democrat party.