ASEAN Economic Development: Impacts and Adaptation for Thai Local Administrative Organizations

Economic development is influenced by domestic development and international obligations. Local administrative organizations may have to bear the effects of various aspects of economic development. Current fundamental problems concerning the role, power and duties of the Local administrative organizations result from the separation of governance to the central, the regional, and the local administrative organizations. Local administrative organizations are again divided into provincial administrative organizations, municipalities, and sub-district administrative organizations. The fundamental issues concerning Thai governance, especially in any specific province, is the separation of roles, powers, duties, budget, and personnel of organizations in a manner in which they are dispersed through the various governmental offices at the department level based on their missions and duties. Concurrently, the administration at local levels has overlapping jurisdiction between provincial administrative organizations and the municipality, and sub-district administrative organizations. The nature of these problematic issues is one that currently exists; however, another dimension is the state of global transformation which poses an additional challenge for the role, power, and duties of Local administrative organizations. This study aims at examining the impacts and adaptation for Thai local administrative organizations resulting from the economic development of ASEAN. The study is separated into three parts: 1) Thailand and economic development in ASEAN; 2) the impact of the local administrative organization toward economic development and 3) analysis and recommendations for Thai local administrative organizations.