Thaksin’s Legacy: Thaksinomics and Its Impact on Thailand’s National Innovation System and Industrial Upgrading

Thaksin Shinawatra was one of the most powerful prime ministers of Thailand. Undergirded by a set of new policies termed Thaksinomics, great political power, his CEO style of management, and his intention to make Thailand a developed country, his administration could have been a formidable force in transforming Thailand’s weak and fragmented innovation system into a stronger and more coherent one and in laying a long-lasting foundation for the country’s technological and industrial upgrading, as experienced in Japan and the East Asian NIEs. Thaksin’s administration paid much attention to the neglected meso and micro foundations of Thailand’s competiveness. For the first time, Thailand had explicit vertical industrial policies that were tailored to specific sectors and geographical clusters. These policies pushed existing central and regional government agencies to adjust themselves accordingly. Thaksin’s government also induced changes in the roles and behaviours of other actors in the country’s national innovation system. Nonetheless the government, to a large extent, failed to make an enduring impact on industrial and technology upgrading. There are two key factors underlying this failure: (a) deficiencies of Thaksin’s policies and implementation of those policies themselves and (b) resistance to changes by other actors in the national innovation system.- Thaksin, Thaksinomics, national innovation system, industrial and technological upgrading policies, industrial cluster, Thailand

Thailands Middle-Income Trap: Firms Technological Upgrading and Innovation and Government Policies

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2018 SJE Conference on Political Economy of the Middle-income Trap, held in Seoul.Once recognized as a high-performing newly industrializing economy, Thailand is currently in the middle-income trap. The country has remained at the middle-income level for more than 15 years. A major reason for such development is a relatively low technological learning of firms in Thailand. After a financial crisis in 1997, certain improvements transpired; for example, transnational corporations and large local firms started to invest increasingly in building rather sophisticated technological capabilities in product and process design, advanced engineering, and R&D. However, Thailand is still lacking a critical mass of innovative firms, which can pull the country out of the trap. On the government side, perpetuated ineffective science, technology, and innovation policies have been implemented for several decades

Toward the Green Economy: Assessing Countries' Green Power

The green power potential of a country is a central factor in the transformation to a green economy. This paper argues that green power will become a decisive factor for global change. Green power combines sustainability, innovation and power into one concept. By merging insights from political science, economics and innovation research, this paper develops a multidimensional, multilevel concept of green power that takes both resources and processes into account. A first empirical assessment of the current distribution of green power in global environmental governance shows that China and India, in particular, as well as Brazil and Costa Rica are catching up in clean technology and renewable energy. The European Union, Germany and the United States still dominate, but they are not fully maximizing their green power potential. In spite of their discursive power, the green power potential of the least developed countries is relatively small, making the jump toward a green economy unlikely

Two Models of Research Technology Organisations in Asia

This article presents two models of research and technology organisations (RTOs) in latecomer countries undergoing technological catch-up. The RTOs in Model A tried to stimulate the accumulation of technological and innovative capabilities ‘within’ firms. In contrast, the RTOs in Model B attempted to create technological capabilities ‘on behalf of firms’. The models have produced different results. Case studies of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Thailand’s National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) are used as representatives of the two models.</jats:p