The origins of the Faculty are traceable to the early 20^th century in the Civil Servants’ Training School. Under different names it remained the flagship institution for training civil servants for the rapidly modernizing Thai government bureaucracy, until it became the country’s first full-fleshed university in 1917. The Faculty of Political Science was one of the original four faculties of Chulalongkorn University.

Since its inception the Faculty covered many academic fields, incorporating not only political science but diplomacy, public administration, finance, economics, law, sociology, anthropology, and population studies.

Today the Faculty of Political Science is one of 17 faculties at Chulalongkorn, and comprises four departments: Government, International Relations, Sociology and Anthropology, and Public Administration. Only about 250 undergraduates are admitted each year for a 4-year degree, and a total of about 200 Master’s and 10 PhD students are doing research at the Faculty at any one time.

There are about 70 academic staff members in the Faculty, most of them holding their postgraduate degrees from the United States, Europe, Australia or Japan. Some Faculty members have served as government officials, while others have assisted non-governmental organizations and directly participated in Thailand’s pro-democracy movement.

The MA in International Development Studies, as an initiative of the Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), is an interdepartmental initiative and the Faculty’s first international programme. It is a testimony of the Faculty’s capacity over its long history to adapt to new academic, social, and political challenges.