Thaksinisation or managerialism? Reforming the Thai bureaucracy

This article analyses key elements of the Thaksin government's public sector reform program since 2001 in the context both of a longer history of public sector reform in Thailand, and of Thaksin's style of political rule. Carefully chosen instruments of new public management reform such as budgeting for results and performance management have been accompanied by an agenda of wholesale restructuring of the bureaucracy. However, these instruments do not include many familiar items of the public management reform agenda. The reforms are best viewed as part of a politicisation strategy aimed at asserting political control at the centre. Managerial reforms are being deployed to reshape the bureaucracy into an instrument of the Thaksin government's political program. In the process, the traditional power of the bureaucracy is being challenged and undermined. The long-term impact of the bureaucratic modernisation program on administrative performance is less certain.