Thailand's new military regime has ushered in several major breaks from past traditions since it seized power on May 22. Among them, the role of technocrats is most conspicuous. In the past, when the Thai military was ascendant and resurgent, the role and contribution of technocrats became more wide-ranging and pronounced. The proven relationship between the military and technocracy is crucial to the legitimacy and credibility of ruling generals during military-authoritarian periods.
The more the technocrats are involved, the better the macroeconomic management is likely to be, with better prospects for economic performance. And the more technocrats are in charge of policy making, the more chance the military will have of finding a soft landing when a democratic transition inevitably arrives. The converse equally rings true. The less technocrats are in stewardship and the more the generals run the country and mange the economy directly, the greater the likelihood that the military government of the day will end up having a hard landing.
The military-technocracy bargain underpins much of Thai economic history after World War II. To be sure, both generals and technocrats are inherently unelected and derive their sources of authority and legitimacy from outside electoral democracy. Yet for four decades from the late 1940s, this was how outcomes were invariably determined in Thailand. The fortunes of generals and technocrats rose and fell together.
When generals were in power, technocrats were correspondingly empowered. Technocrats were simply policy professionals, sometimes including senior bureaucrats with specialised training and steep expertise in macro-policy portfolios, such as finance and commerce. Later, as the Thai economy expanded and became more multi-layered and sophisticated, the macro-policy realm also covered industry, agriculture, transport, communications, foreign affairs and education.
These ministries are central to macroeconomic management and economic growth and stability. What the technocrats never controlled were portfolios directly related to internal and external security. Apart from these ministries, a clutch of macro-policy agencies constituted the backbone of Thai technocracy, namely the Bank of Thailand, Ministry of Finance, Budget Bureau, and the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB).
This military-technocracy arrangement was an implicit deal that propelled Thai economic growth for much of the period between 1947 and 1988. Military generals delegated authority and provided autonomy and insulation for technocrats who, in turn, became the architects and managers of economic expansion. The more the economy grew, the more legitimacy and rent-seeking opportunities military generals enjoyed, whereas the technocrats relied on military overlords for authority, autonomy and insulation from vested interests. Friction between generals and technocrats surfaced regularly, but the unflinching integrity of technocrats more or less carried the day. Generals usually backed down after some huff and puff.
The technocrats' main leverage was a combination of their honesty and expertise. An iconic and legendary technocrat in the past would be someone like Dr Puey Ungphakorn, a former Bank of Thailand governor and rector of Thammasat University. Until recent decades, not many Thais had specialised training and higher education from abroad, and hence the technocrats in the early period were a small coterie who tended to know and trust each other.
As modernisation made more headway in Thailand on the back of sustained economic growth, both the military's and technocracy's days were numbered. The rise of student activism and middle classes, along with other social forces and civil society offshoots, challenged the military-technocracy framework by upending military rule in the 1970s and paving the way for democratic transition and greater democratisation.
The 1980-88 period was a rearguard arrangement for the military and technocracy in what was deemed a "semi-democratic" rule, where the military remained dominant but technocrats were in charge of macroeconomic stewardship while elected politicians took control of line ministries, excluding the Ministry of Finance and technocratic agencies such as the Bank of Thailand and the NESDB. Three elections were held in that period, culminating with the rise of the Chart Thai Party and newly elected prime minister Chatichai Choonhavan.
The Chatichai cabinet proceeded to politicise and capture macro-policy institutions, particularly the Ministry of Finance, the NESDB and the Bank of Thailand. The erosion of macro-policy autonomy and insulated technocratic expertise laid the conditions for the subsequent macroeconomic mismanagement that led to the crises in the financial sector and in exchange rate supervision in 1996-97. A full-blown economic crisis ensued. One poignant anecdote of the rise of elected politicians who shunted technocrats aside transpired in August 1988 when a Prime Minister's Office minister personally went to the NESDB and told its secretary-general to report only to him, no longer to the PM's Office as independent policy adviser.
Based on past patterns, when Chatichai was overthrown in a coup in February 1991, the ruling generals put technocrats in charge of macro-policy portfolios, including the premiership. These technocrats went on to dismantle some of the corrupt concession schemes from the Chatichai cabinet. But the generals also got in on the fishy business with alleged commissions and graft, pitting some of them against the technocrats, who used the same combined leverage of integrity and expertise to navigate their way forward.
This military-technocracy arrangement no longer holds in the current coup period. The top brass from the army, navy, air force and police have taken top ministerial jobs that should have gone to policy professionals. Most glaring is the Foreign Affairs portfolio, which always went to a capable and proven diplomat in past military-authoritarian periods. In times past, civilian experts with technocratic expertise would normally be in charge of such ministries as Transport, Commerce, Education, Social Development and Human Rights, Natural Resource and Environment — but no longer.
The generals are running Thailand and managing its economy and society themselves. Their military forebears neither tried to do it themselves, nor even considered it. If this trend continues and becomes entrenched, it may be a bad omen for what lies ahead — that is, unless this set of military masters have discovered a magic wand to do all the right things without being overwhelmed by the complexities of Thailand in the 21st century.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.