Recentralizing while Decentralizing: Centre-Local Relations and “CEO” Governors in Thailand
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Date
2004
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration
Abstract
All modern states have historically been divided on a territorial basis
between the centre (central government) and the periphery (regional and
local governments), the nature of whose relationship varies considerably
depending on, among other things, the country's constitutional framework,
the distribution of functions and responsibilities between levels of
government, the means by which their personnel are appointed and
recruited, the political, economic, administrative and other powers that the
centre exercises to regulate the periphery, and the level of independence
that local bodies enjoy. Yet such a static explanation is inadequate in defining
the dramatic changes in centre-periphery arrangements that have taken
place in some countries in the last two decades. More rounded explanations
of those centre-periphery (or centre-local) changes, particularly the
decentralisation of authority and resources to subnational governments,
involve asking why and under what circumstances the bargaining for the
final centre-local arrangements takes place.
This article explores this issue, using the case of Thailand's efforts at
decentralisation which started in the 1990s and are still ongoing.1 Thailand's
decentralisation programme aimed to transfer functional responsibilities
to subnational governments, to enhance their autonomy and discretion, and
to allow local communities greater say in the management of public
resources as well as in planning their own socio-economic development.
The article aims to go further than the usual for-or-against debates about
decentralisation by examining one unanticipated outcome of Thailand's
decentralisation experiment: a reconfiguration of centre-local arrangements to create new institutions of governance that ironically suggest recentralisation
amidst the decentralisation.
Description
Keywords
Recentralizing, Decentralizing, Centre-Local Relations, CEO, Governors
Citation
Alex M Mutebi (2004) Recentralising while Decentralising: Centre-Local Relations and “CEO” Governors in Thailand, Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 26:1, 33-53, DOI: 10.1080/23276665.2004.10779284