From Table 3, the Thai case is used to illustrate how power relationships among
politicians can change as a result of administrative reform. Traditionally,
governments in Thailand have been characterized by coalitions of several political
parties and cliques that weakened the prime minister’s power (Bowornwathana,
2001c). The longer a coalition government lasts, the more the power of the ministers.
However, reforms introduced by PM Thaksin have made him a stronger prime
minister and ministers weaker. Thus Thaksin’s government would fall under the leftbottom
hand side of the table.
II. REFORM POLICY AND TOOLS AS POLITICAL INSTRUMENTS
Factors such as economic crisis, internal political ideologies, and external forces of
globalization do explain the diffusion and import of rhetorical aspects of public
management reform policies. However, these factors do not explain why some
managerial techniques were chosen over others in the reform policy package. The
authors propose to use the bureaucratic politics framework to help explain why certain
reform policies and tools are chosen over others. The bureaucratic politics framework
sees administrative reform as a political battle among actors: politicians and
bureaucrats, for superior power. Both bureaucrats and politicians use management
reform policies and tools as their political instruments to acquire more power in
government.
In studies of public policy, it is found that after rhetorical policies are advertised by
the politicians, in general, the details of programs, instruments and tools of a policy
are usually left to the bureaucrats to plan and decide on their own (Meier, 1987). It is