9 - Thailand's Politics of Decentralization: Reform and Resistance before and after the May 2014 Coup

Summary

To determine whether political transformation causes radical and long-lasting change requires attention to the question of whether that transformation has changed the regime or the state (Petras 1989, pp. 26–27). At the regime level, change occurs in government, parliament, electoral rules, political parties and degrees of civic participation. Changes at the regime level often occur as a result of the reform of political institutions, from which a new regime emerges. For instance, when the administrative structure is reformed, state-society relations are re-regulated or the electoral system is changed, regime change is or may be the result. In the context of international interest in democratizing reforms, many states have introduced institutional designs meant to promote democracy. Political change at the state level, while more powerful and consequential, has proved less likely to occur. Petras (1989, p. 26) emphasizes the state's embodiment of “the permanent institution of government and the concomitant ensemble of class relations which have been embedded in these same institutions”. It follows that to determine whether political change has the potential to consolidate democracy demands consideration of change at the level of the state.

Decentralization ranks among the most important reforms of a state's political institutions. It entails administrative restructuring that aims to establish efficient, participatory and democratic self-government. According to Sharpe, three principles underpin democratic local governance: liberty, participation and efficient service (Sharpe 1970, p. 156). Any local administration that upholds these values would approach the ideal of local democracy, which is a foundation for a developing democratic regime.

This chapter examines the effects that regime decentralization can have on the characteristics of the state, including those not anticipated by the elites that have supported decentralization. It elaborates on characteristics of the Thai state and, in particular, on interactions between the state and local political actors in rural and provincial areas. Its focus is on political power relations outside Bangkok. The chapter assesses the way in which three basic attributes of the state — a centralized and powerful bureaucracy, deep-rooted clientelism and what I term “hegemonic ideology” — informed decentralization. In turn, these attributes engendered resistance to the process of decentralization itself. That resistance dated from the beginning of the decentralization movement. However, the trend of democratization at the time meant that it took concealed forms.