[19-1]Village Leadership and Social Structure in a Rural Community of Northeast Thailand

The present paper treats with the nature of village leadership in connection with the structural aspects within the village, analyzing the data gathered in a clustered type of village in Northeast Thailand. A fairly high consensus in choosing the village leaders exists in the village, and two types of village leaders are found, based on the structural foundation of the village, but a tendency can be observed that village leaders, especially those in the late middle age, are becoming more active in political activities according to the increasingly multiplied and intensified external relationship of the village, even though it is said that leaders in that-type of villages are not so active in politics as those in the linear type of villages