Decentralization and Economic Development in Thailand: Regional Disparity in Fiscal Capacity and Educational Decentralization

Decentralization has progressed not only in developed countries but also in developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia since the late twentieth century (Bardhan 2002). Thailand, the country discussed in this chapter, is also undergoing a process of decentralization. In the past decade, the promulgation of the Royal Thailand Constitution of 1997 and the Decentralization Plan and Process Act of 1999 expanded the obligations of local governments to provide public services (Krueathep 2004). Behind this decentralization was the experience of the centralized administration which found that it could not operate flexibly in local economies when the Asian financial crisis occurred in 1997 (UNDP 2003).