Within a year after the May 2014 coup, the NCPO has made progress in pushing forward projects such as SBEZs and giving a go-ahead to several contentious development projects. Bureaucrats, technocrats and businesses may see this step forward as a positive change—as reform in its own right—because no democratically elected governments would have dared to push such ambitious and contentious plans. However, this forced reform is likely to cause much more tension and resistance from civil society that will in turn reorganize social forces including the Thai labor movement.