4 - The Vertical Accountability Dimension

Summary

As explained in chapter 2.5, vertical accountability in this study refers to an accountability mechanism between central and local levels of a political system. Citizens and institutions at the local level are important by exercising accountability towards local governments and at the same time by exerting control over national politics.

In order to analyse institutional engineering in regard to vertical accountability, I will assess what kind of institutional reforms concerning local democracy and centre-local relations were undertaken in the three countries under research. I will start with the Philippines, followed by Indonesia, and then Thailand and an assessement of the respective legal frameworks in order to determine the level of autonomy and powers of local governments. Following, I will then examine the working of democracy at the local level. In a next step I will analyse the degree to which ethnic conflicts and separatism in the troubled regions of the three countries were impacted by the course of the decentralization process. Finally, I will take a closer look at the interactions between central and local governments and examine in which ways the accountability mechanisms are structured and work in practice.

THAILAND

Thailand had traditionally been ruled by bureaucratic elites, whose political struggles took place almost exclusively within the bureaucratic institutions of the centralist state. Frequent military coups and decades of authoritarian rule further strengthened the centralist tradition. Until today, the dominant legacy of centralized governance, which is deeply embedded in Thai society and politics, has been a major barrier to decentralization (Haque 2010, p. 686).

Thailand's political and economic power was and is concentrated in the capital, Bangkok. The next state sub-division is the provinces (changwat). Due to their relatively high number (about 80), in addition to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the provinces have little importance in national politics. Traditionally, the role of each governor was to carry out the orders of the national government and to coordinate the work of the other sub-divisions. Among them are about 900 districts (amphoe), more than 7,000 sub-districts (tambon) and about 75,000 villages (muban). Before 1997 more than 90 per cent of the sales and excise taxes collected by local governments were transferred to Bangkok (Hunsacker, quoted in Hicken 2009, p. 117). Consequently, subnational government expenditures were less than 10 per cent of the national GDP prior to 1997.