In the summer of 1997, in the aftermath of the most severe financial crisis in Thai
history, the IMF-derived term “Good Governance” was hastily reincarnated in the Thai
language as the word thammarat. Though obviously prompted by the impending diktat
of the global financial regime, its Thai inventor, Professor Chaiwat Satha-anand of the
Faculty of Political Science at Thammasat University, and its chief public advocate,
Thirayuth Boonmi, a lecturer in the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, explicitly
stated that the intention behind the Thai coinage was to create a space for the
interpretation of Good Governance in Thai cultural politics which was relatively
autonomous from IMF meanings and policy imperatives.