The Politics of Uneven Development: Thailand's Economic Growth in Comparative Perspective - By Richard F. Doner

Going green in Thailand: Upgrading in global organic value chains

“…The theoretical framework we derived from the existing GPN literature only partially explained the patterns of success and failure we found in Isan. Consistent with the expectations of this literature, a dense network of actors with non‐material motivations was required to help farmers overcome a specific set of upgrading tasks (e.g., Doner, 2009) and connect to international commodity networks and overcome a specific set of upgrading tasks (Bolwig et al, 2010; Gereffi & Lee, 2016; Klooster, 2005; Ponte & Gibbon, 2005; Raynolds, 2004). In addition, local governments in some cases played a role in this effort (e.g., Evans, 1996; Poulton et al, 2010).…”

“…For the first step, we build on Doner's (2009) research that identifies and analyses the nature of challenges associated with specific upgrading tasks. Doner highlights the capacity of central state institutions seeking to help overcome these challenges by overcoming collective action problems related to making credible commitments, monitoring compliance and consulting with other groups of producers.…”

“…In this project, we explore this nexus in greater depth, fleshing out the specific capacities that local governments and a variety of non-governmental actors can offer local producers in overcoming particular upgrading challenges in the organic agricultural sector. Following the methodology applied in Doner (2009), we used primary and secondary sources to identify individual and collective challenges common to smallholding farmers contemplating the onerous but potentially rewarding task of shifting to organic agricultural production.…”

The Political Economy of Industrial Policy

“…While commentators drew parallels between Thai private-public efforts and East Asia, ascendant business groups and lobbies exercised far more power over the state than in NICs. Although outward-oriented interventionism echoed aspects of South Korea's, Thailand could not fully pursue key pillars of Korean policy (e.g., de facto import liberalization for exporters), nor could they adopt the more complex industrial policies seen later across the NICs (Christensen and Siamwalla, 1993;Doner, 2009). Nevertheless, policymakers acted on windows of opportunity to pursue a strategy-and invest in bureaucratic capacity-that worked within Thailand's political economy.…”