Thailand's recent administrative reforms are analyzed in a context of the legacies of its bureaucratic institutions. Traditional Thai bureaucratic culture is characterized by patrimonialism, departmentalism and legal proceduralism, with bureaucratic power and status legitimized by myths and symbols of service to the monarchy. But the realities of bureaucratic performance (including corruption) have provided a strong stimulus for reform. Since the 1990s, reforms have been strongly influenced by New Public Management (NPM), albeit in a bureaucratic environment hostile to their imposition. International institutions such as the IMF were instrumental in introducing some of the new ideas. Under the governments of Thaksin Shinawatra, such reforms (selectively applied) gained pace due to the imposition of a clear political purpose: centralization of decision-making power (including patronage) in the hands of Thaksin and his immediate circle. The impact of these waves of reform was softened by a combination of the power of bureaucratic conservatives and by their association at first with 'foreign' forces and later with the 'political excesses' of Thaksin. The recent military coup and its aftermath represent a revival of some aspects of Thailand's bureaucratic traditions and hence an interruption to the globalizing, modernizing trajectory of the reforms.
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