PRAXIS: A REVIEW OF POLICY PRACTICE

Thailand Smart Cities: What is the

Path to Success?

Suradech Taweesaengsakulthai*
Sirisak Laochankham†
Peerasit Kamnuansilpa‡
Supawatanakorn Wongthanavasu§

Overview: The smart city, seen at the end of the 20th century in the West, has become a
national policy strategy for social and economic development in Thailand in the first
decade of this century. While the central government is overseeing and financially
supporting designated cities in Thailand, key business and community leaders in Khon
Kaen City have worked diligently but have not yet received all the necessary approvals
from the central government for locally-based smart city initiatives. We demonstrate that
direction without a clear policy statement will not produce the intended results.
Moreover, the highly centralized bureaucratic management style may result in lost
opportunities for Thailand to improve life for its citizens. Thailand needs to completely
and successfully overhaul its political system in order to pave the way for a functional
democracy, good governance, and responsive bureaucracy before its implementation of
smart city policy will produce maximum benefits.

T he smart city concept has become quite popular in recent years, and the buzz-
word has taken on added cache in Southeast Asia, with Singapore recently
proposing a Smart Cities Network to enhance connectivity between urban cen-
ters (ASEAN, 2018). As such, it is important to review the development of smart

*Suradech Taweesaengsakulthai, Associate Dean, College of Local Administration,

Khon Kaen University.
†Sirisak Laochankham, Lecturer, College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen

University.
‡Peerasit Kamnuansilpa, Former and Founding Dean, College of Local Administration,

Khon Kaen University.

§Supawatanakorn Wongthanavasu, Dean, College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen

University.

DOI: 10.1111/aspp.12445
Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 11, Number 1—Pages 144–156
© 2019 Policy Studies Organization. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
 Thailand Smart Cities     145

city policies and reflect upon the readiness and capacity for developing states to
embrace such policies. In this brief essay, we discuss the history of Thailand’s
smart cities policies, casting a critical eye on their emergence. We show that the
current top-down implementation of the policy has struggled to find root. At the
same time, we demonstrate through the example of Khon Kaen that an approach
linking bottom-up demand with state resources can be more promising. We con-
tend that in order for Thailand’s smart cities policy to be effective, the needs of
citizens need to be better represented in policy design and formulation, which
will likely require greater citizen participation in the policy process.
The genesis of the term smart city can be traced to the work of Graham and
Aurigi (1997) who introduced digital city as a meaningful socio-cultural space for
public interaction. A digital city is a virtual city created by the advancement of
the Internet, which became publicly accessible in 1991 (Bryant, 2011). The name
digital city was taken up by a group of activists in Amsterdam in 1994 as they
promoted dialogues between community members and politicians. Through the
Internet, the digital city became synonymous with information city before it later
evolved into ubiquitous city, where data are widely available through an embed-
ded information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure within
modern cities. This name continued to evolve to another name, intelligent city,
before becoming commonly referred to as a smart city (Anthopoulos, 2017). Smart
city and digital city are now the most common terminologies used to signify the
technology within a city’s development (Cocchia, 2014).
Digital technology continues to be more widely available and integrated in
city management. In part, this is driven by challenges such as increasingly pop-
ulated and sprawling cities and the ensuing problems of environmental degra-
dation, traffic congestion and slow mobility within and between cities, not to
mention the socio-economic plight of the poor who are attracted to cities where
they can face social exclusion (Frérot, 2017). All these problems forced cities to
invent solutions to make them sustainable and more livable, particularly for peo-
ple who already have access to public services but are in danger of losing them.
Thanks in part to the digital technology and smart leaders, many cities in the
world are addressing these problems.
The idea of smart cities entered Thailand in 2003, when the concept was first
adopted by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT)
(Blognone, 2016), before it was included as a development strategy for creating
more environmentally friendly and more livable cities in The Twelfth National
Economic and Social Development Plan (Office of National Economic and Social
Development Board, 2017). The MICT would later change its name in 2016 to the
Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MODES) reflecting the increasingly
important role of digital technology as an agent of national economic develop-
ment (TeleGeography, 2016). MODES continues to be one of the central drivers
of the smart cities concept in Thailand.
Recognizing the need to propel the country out of the middle-income trap, in
2016 the kingdom’s policymakers devised the Thailand 4.0 policy, an economic
model based on creativity, innovation, and high-level services, all of which are
made possible by advanced digital technology (Baxter, 2017). This policy is
146      Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 11, Issue 1—2019

derived from the seminal work, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution,” written by
Klaus Schwab (2016), the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum.
While not fully into the mature stage of Klaus’s Third Industrial Revolution,
also known as the Digital Revolution, referring to an economic system that is
driven by the advancement of the widely available digital technology, Thailand
hopes to leapfrog into the Fourth Industrial Revolution by utilizing techno-
logical breakthroughs in a number of fields, such as robotics, artificial intelli-
gence, and the Internet of Things. The government of Thailand evaluated its
own paths of national economic development and interpreted or redefined the
Third Revolution to fit its own context. The definition that Thailand gave to
Thailand 3.0 is an economy that relies on heavy industries as the main engine
of economic growth. Once that was defined, Thailand announced the Thailand
4.0 policy framework as a new development direction of the country. This policy
announcement is in line with the national economic reform and in accordance
with the 20-year national strategy (Government Foreign Relations Department,
2016). However, Thailand 4.0, according to SuvitMaesincee, Minister of Science
and Technology, was very vague when he explained that Thailand 4.0 is a de-
velopment model that will push the country forward toward national security,
prosperity, and sustainability. In an interview with the press he said, “many peo-
ple misunderstood Thailand 4.0 … it is only partially correct to say that Thailand
4.0 is a policy to promote the use of digital technology in new industrial devel-
opment” (Banchanon, 2017).
Although the concept of a smart city preceded Thailand 4.0, it did not gain
any serious recognition as a strategy for national economic development until
after it was included as an implementation plan within Thailand 4.0. Using
Cohen’s concept of the smart city wheel, which includes smart mobility, smart
people, smart economy, smart environment, and smart government (Cohen,
2013), ministries beyond MODES have adopted the language of the smart city
in their drive to take part in the Thailand 4.0 plan. For example, the Ministry of
Energy announced its new policy on Energy 4.0 for smart cities, relating energy
to all aspects of city life (Energy Time Online, 2018). Interestingly, the Ministry of
Agriculture and Cooperatives, which had announced a smart farming policy well
before Thailand 4.0 policy, attached its Smart Farmers Policy for the years 2017
to 2036 to Thailand 4.0 (Office of The Permanent Secretary for The Ministry of
Agriculture and Cooperatives, 2013, 2017). More blatantly, the Ministry of Public
Health introduced the words eHealth, Health Care 4.0, and Smart Health into its
policy and strategies for improving health care quality and coverage (Ministry
of Public Health, 2016a, 2016b). Most interesting, however, is the Ministry of
Education, which has an embarrassing history of failing Thai children in both
local and international educational tests (Maxwell & Kamnuansilpa, 2017). It has
moved away from relying on educational reform policies to “smart education”
to redress the low quality of education (Charoonsak, 2018; Thai Smart Education,
2016). It is clear that, hastened by Thailand 4.0 policy, the term smart city has
become both a buzzword and legitimate implementation plan for most, if not all,
ministries and departments in Thailand.
 Thailand Smart Cities     147

How Smart Cities Were Designated in Thailand and for Whose

Benefit
Today, smart cities have become a nationwide policy in the Thai context. This
rapid adoption of the policy language is consistent with Wongkachonkiti’s (2016)
observation that the smart city project is part of a larger goal of making Thailand,
as a whole, a smart country.
In 2013, the MICT selected Nakhon Nayok as a pilot province to implement the
smart city policy. The implementation was an action in response to the resolution
adopted at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also
known as Rio+20, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 20-22, 1992
(United Nations, 2012). With the aim of achieving the Sustainable Development
goal from that conference, the main objective of the smart city in Nakhon Nayok
was to employ advanced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to
improve the quality of life of the citizens through more convenient public ser-
vices and more effective administrative functions throughout the province.
This project, however, was fraught with problems, due mainly to a lack of clar-
ity and competency in implementation by the MICT. This initial incoherence of
the policy meant that the smart city project in Nakhon Nayok was not built on a
solid foundation, as agency staff in the province that represented the central gov-
ernment had very little, if any, knowledge about how smart city should be im-
plemented. This is an indication of the unpreparedness of the MICT and the lack
of leadership ability of its professional staff. There was also an absence of policy
commitment from the central government, as highlighted by the small budget of
10 million baht that was allocated to the entire provincial development strategy
fund, of which smart city project received a minor amount (Komchadluek, 2012).
All of these made the project unsuccessful, and Nakhon Nayok was eventually
abandoned as the country’s first smart city project. This initial failure highlights
the challenge of defining and outlining a smart cities policy beyond the use of
buzzwords. Without coherent policy direction, the initiative quickly collapsed.
In 2016, the MICT was reorganized into the Ministry of Digital Economy
and Society (MODES) with Air Chief Marshall Prajin Juntong at its helm from
September until December. Juntong had a special interest in smart city. According
to him:

In 2008, I went to Sweden and I had a chance to visit a small town near
Stockholm that had an area of about two square kilometers that had
served as a garbage dumping site for Stockholm. There I learned that,
through the help of digital technology, the area was transformed into a
small smart city. The mayor’s focuses were on smart living, smart mobil-
ity, smart energy, and smart environment. It took the mayor nearly five
years to transform the town into a smart city. (Transcribed from his public
lecture delivered at the College of Local Administration on May 27, 2018)

After the 2014 coup, Air Chief Marshall Prajin Juntong served as the Minister
of Transport (MOT) from August 2014 to August 2015, when he was reassigned to
the MODES. He carried on his interest in smart city and set up a working group
to develop a plan to formulate a smart city policy, spearheading on smart mobil-
ity. The MOT also commissioned Chulalongkorn University to conduct a study
to recommend where the smart city project should be launched (Transcription
148      Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 11, Issue 1—2019

from his lecture at the College of Local Administration on May 27, 2018). MODES
selected Phuket to be the first smart city and called it the “Phuket Smart City
Project” (Khianmeesuk, 2017). His policy was continued by his successor.
According to this plan, Phuket is scheduled to be a smart city sometime in 2020.
As of March, 2017, more than 161 million baht had been spent for upgrad-
ing more than 20 service points for high-speed Internet in government offices
and installing approximately 1,000 Wi-Fi hot spots and 1,000 CCTV cameras
within the city (Satjaboontawee, 2018; Suppavatee, 2018; TechTalkThai, 2017).
The focus of smart city in Phuket was on increasing knowledge about digital
technology. It established Phuket Smart Innovation Park as a center to dissem-
inate knowledge about and promote the application of digital technology in
business (Khianmeesuk, 2017). The rapid effort to spread knowledge about tech-
nology spotlights the struggle to move Phuket rapidly past the Third Industrial
Revolution and into Thailand 4.0. For much of the city, though, achieving smart
city status remains a distant goal.
Not to be outdone by Phuket Province, Pawin Chamniprasart, the Governor of
Chiang Mai Province, along with Narong Tananuwat, Chairman of Chiang Mai
Province Chamber of Commerce, wanted to create a smart city in Chiang Mai
Province. They went to South Korea to learn from the experiences of the leaders
of Incheon City and Seongnam City. It was a successful business trip, as Chiang
Mai Province was able to establish a collaboration with Seongnam City. The
specific activities under the collaboration with and the assistance of Seongnam
City were promotion of ICT development among local communities in Chiang
Mai Province and formulation of a smart city development plan (Naprathansuk,
2017). Given this groundwork, Chiang Mai made a pitch to MODES to be in-
cluded in the national smart city plan. Included in the smart city development
plan were promotion of smart agriculture, reduction of air pollution, and an-
other remnant of the Third Industrial Revolution, enhancing the use of informa-
tion and communications technology.
To assist Chiang Mai Province in achieving the goal of creating a smart city, the
Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), an office under the MODES, pro-
vided more than 36 million baht, mostly for procurements, to assist in creating a
smart city in Chiang Mai Province. The agency also provided technical consul-
tancy on three operational plans: tackling smoke and haze problems; institution-
alizing smart agriculture; and application of technology to solve transportation
problems and support the tourism industry in the province. An attempt to assess
the achievement of the smart city program in Chiang Mai Province found the
same challenges of how to effectively implement the policy, i.e., no clear policy
statement, lack of knowledge, and understanding on the part of the staff of gov-
ernment agencies, and insufficient allocated budget (Naprathansuk, 2017). As of
now, Chiang Mai Province is still wrestling with the long-standing problem of
how to mitigate the effects of smoke and haze, which reach their peak in March
of each year. Indeed, the smart city policy has not yet served as a solution to any
of the challenges which it promised to solve. While it is still early in the imple-
mentation process, it appears that the lack of smart city policy coherence will
hinder the growth of Chiang Mai into a smart city. Seemingly, the most promis-
ing part of the smart city project is that of encouraging tourism, a sector which
was already experiencing healthy growth.
 Thailand Smart Cities     149

All three of the initial pioneering smart cities in Thailand were designated by
the central government. On the positive side, all three provinces were able to
garner financial and technical support (such as it was) from the central govern-
ment. According to the classical theory of Almond and Powell (1966), this is an
indication of the high extractive capability of the provincial leaders. However,
they also seem to possess low responsive capability as they were not able to align
the goals and actions of the national political elites to the needs of local people.
More particularly, both Phuket and Chiang Mai Provinces put a strong emphasis
on smart city as strategy to promote their tourist industry over the welfare of the
citizens.

Khon Kaen’s Smart City: Ramifications for Thai Bureaucracy

A government-commissioned study by Chulalongkorn University recom-
mended Khon Kaen Province as one of 10 provinces suitable for smart city
projects. As that study was commissioned by the central government, the im-
plication is that all smart cities would be under the oversight of central govern-
ment agencies. According to Thai political culture, when a project is launched
in a province, it is under the jurisdiction of the office of the provincial governor.
The governor, being a representative of the central government, has almost the
exclusive authority in the province. Therefore, the two smart city projects were
essentially owned by the powers in Bangkok, with little, if any, consideration
of the local community’s needs. Both Phuket Province in the South and Chiang
Mai Province in the North are well recognized as two of the most attractive tour-
ist destinations in the country. This fact influenced the DEPA decision to adopt
them as project sites. This is in contrast to Khon Kaen’s smart city, where local
people had learned that past associations with the central bureaucracy were gen-
erally unfruitful.
Unlike Phuket and Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen is not known as a tourist destina-
tion. The numbers of tourists and visitors to Khon Kaen in 2015 reached only 3.9
million (Khon Kaen Municipality, 2015), as compared to more than more than
9 million for Chiang Mai (Ministry of Tourism & Sports, 2015) and more than
13 million for Phuket (Phuket Provincial Statistical, 2015). Khon Kaen is better
known as the northeast Thailand center for education, medical services, busi-
ness, banking, and other public services. It is viewed as the bellwether province
of the Northeast. Socio-political movements initiated within the province are
dubbed the Khon Kaen Model. This is also the case with Khon Kaen’s smart city
project (Komchadluek, 2012).
Demographically, Khon Kaen is the fourth largest province in Thailand, with
a population of over 1.8 million (Official Statistical Registration Systems, 2017)
and a high growth rate of over 2% per annum, which is largely accounted for
by the immigration of new investors and workers. Khon Kaen Municipality, in
itself, is a rapidly growing city. In 2016, it had a registered population of 120,045
(Khon Kaen Municipality, 2016) and is considered to be a medium-sized city
(Chanawongse, Kamnuansilpa, Wongtanavasu, & Techamanee, 2000). However,
on any weekday, the influx of non-residents (people from the region coming for
medical and other social services, educational purposes, etc.) requires the city to
accommodate a daily population of almost three times the size of its registered
population. Therefore, services such as clean water, sewage and waste treatment,
150      Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 11, Issue 1—2019

garbage collection, electricity, telephone, and Internet services, have to be im-

proved, both quantitatively and qualitatively, to meet the rising demands and
higher expectations of those who come to the city. More pressing is the rush hour
traffic congestion within the city. The situation is aggravated when there is an or-
ganized event, such as a political caucus, university entrance examination for the
whole country, a commencement of any one of the five colleges or universities
that are located within the city, policy, and administrative meeting of all govern-
ment officials of the region, and a national or international academic conference
that is usually hosted by one of the higher educational institutions in the city.
In the past, the mayor, business leaders and key community leaders of Khon
Kaen City had brought these problems with some specific proposed solutions,
to the attention of the central government authorities. However, they were often
met with vague promises, lip service, or at best some small budget allocations
that were not only irresponsive to the needs of local people but could not, by any
means, address a real solution to the larger picture of complex problems in the
city.
The citizens of Khon Kaen City have learned through experience that the
highly centralized management of the country is a stumbling block for their de-
sire to solve local problems. They were all too aware that the centralized man-
agement system almost always allocated the largest proportion of the budget to
Bangkok. The figures from the Parliamentary Budget Office (2017) indicate an
unbalanced budget allocation, showing that Bangkok received 10 times more
than Nakhon Ratchasima, the second largest province, and 12 times more than
Khon Kaen. To address this issue, in 2013 local business leaders developed their
own solution in the form of a nonprofit private company, under the name of
“Khon Kaen Think Tank” (KKTT), with initial registered funds of 200 million
baht (TERRABKK, 2017).
These key business leaders were born and/or have lived in Khon Kaen for
their whole lives. Personal attachment to the city and a sense of responsibility
to its people, as well as concern for economic growth and development, drove
their decision to initiate the Khon Kaen smart city initiative. For more than seven
years, long before the launch of the smart city initiative in Phuket, they were
working to make Khon Kaen City a more livable place by solving day-to-day
chronic problems that the city faces. The members of KKTT closely observed the
operations and followed the progress of the smart city project in Phuket closely.
In 2015, Air Chief Marshall Prajin Juntong, in his capacity as the Minister of
Transport, came to Khon Kaen on his first official visit. KKTT was granted an
opportunity to present to the Minister their ideas about transforming Khon Kaen
into a smart city, beginning with a light rail system. In a debriefing session, they
emphasized smart mobility, while not overlooking the importance of other as-
pects of a smart city. They solicited policy support (but not financial support
due to the potential strings attached) for the construction of the first phase of the
Khon Kaen light rail route, running north and south in Khon Kaen City. The pro-
posed light rail route would run through the areas of five municipalities namely,
Samran, Sila, Khon Kaen, Mueangkao, and Thaphra. That session went well.
In his capacity as the Minister of Transport, Air Chief Marshall Prajin Juntong
gave strong verbal policy support, but formal permission to operate the light
rail train (LRT) was still legally required. Indeed, the Ministry of Transport only
 Thailand Smart Cities     151

has the authorization to approve the LRT, not the smart city concept as a whole.
Thus, this phase was only the beginning of a long and arduous process for the
KKTT to navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth. Due to ministerial regulations and
central government laws, the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning
(OTP) has jurisdiction over traffic management, including any decision to adopt
a light rail system. Thus, the KKTT’s efforts to improve traffic management in
the city were subject to an OTP study, which was only completed in May 2018.
The KKTT leaders and local government prefer to have the light rail system
overseen by local government rather than a central agency. This has created
two issues of bureaucratic entanglement: First, whether the local government
is permitted to run a business-like operation, and second if they have the au-
tonomy to run the project without the approval of the Ministry of Interior. In an
attempt to resolve these issues, and after some clarifications, Air Chief Marshall
PrajnJuntong arranged for the team from Khon Kaen to have an appointment
with the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to seek approval. On
March 8, 2016, the LRT project received approval from the head of NCPO, Prime
Minister Prayut Chan-Ocha.
After that approval, the team from Khon Kaen, led by the provincial governor,
the Mayor of Khon Municipality (on behalf of the mayors of the five municipal-
ities), and business leaders, met with the Minister of Interior to seek approval to
set up a business arm including all five municipalities under the name of Khon
Kaen Transit System Company Limited (KKTS). This company is jointly owned
by the five municipalities that the LRT is going to run through. The establish-
ment of this business arm, effective in March 2018, allowed the local leaders to
reach a satisfactory conclusion to both the question of a local government oper-
ating a business venture as well as Ministry of Interior oversight.
The light rail project has become central to the Khon Kaen smart city program,
and local leaders believe it is integral to pushing forward the city’s development
as a regional hub. While the central government has given approval for the infra-
structure, hurdles remain regarding land acquisition as well as negotiating addi-
tional levels of government bureaucracy. Even so, the initiatives of local business
and government leaders have been relatively successful in pushing the Khon Kaen
smart city program forward. At the same time, the central government has yet to
designate Khon Kaen as a smart city, meaning this is an entirely local endeavor.

Conclusion: Lessons Learned and Implications

By looking at smart city policies in Thailand, we can draw a number of policy
lessons. First, a lack of a clear and coherent policy statement leads to weak pol-
icy commitment and ineffective policy implementation. In the cases of Nakhon
Nayok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai provinces, the lack of a clear conceptual frame-
work about what constitutes a smart city, on the part of both the central bureau-
crats and provincial staff, has retarded, or even derailed in the case of Nakhon
Nayok, the direction or progress of the smart city implementation. In some as-
pects, this is similar to the weakened roles of the local bureaucrats that inhibit the
effectiveness of policy implementation at the local level (Lipsky, 2010; Ricks, 2017).
There was a myopic view, if not a total lack of understanding, of the smart city
on the part of both central bureaucrats and local bureaucrats who are responsi-
ble for the implementation of the policy. Many had a traditional picture of the
152      Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 11, Issue 1—2019

smart city, that it is only about advancing, updating, and applying the Internet
to public services. This is similar to the past experiences of some European cities
as noted by Caragliu, Bo, and Nijkamp (2011). In their opinion, “…the stress on
the Internet as the smart city no longer suffices” (p. 70).
Second, and relatedly, the allocation of budgets and resources alone were in-
sufficient to transform traditional cities into innovative centers. They must be
accompanied by a change in bureaucratic culture. Without the requisite knowl-
edge, the staff cannot effectively communicate among themselves and/or with
their superiors or subordinates. If there is no communication within the organi-
zations, staff interaction is limited.
Under these circumstances, the smart city concept is difficult to evolve as an
element of organization culture. Therefore, it would be extremely difficult to in-
culcate this as a core value in the bureaucrats. Thailand needs to become a more
economically prosperous country and applying the smart city as the main engine
of development will help. In order to accomplish this, the DEPA should leverage
the capability of all parties involved through partnerships, while at the same
collaborating with higher education institutions to increase public knowledge
and awareness of smart city solutions. In the end, this will empower citizens to
not only adopt, but actually demand for more of the envisioned solutions, and
eventually become able to engage in the development of smart city initiatives.
The knowledge about and the benefits of the smart city gained by both bureau-
crats and citizens will function as a demand creator, positively affecting the sup-
ply side (the service provision) in the equation of the well-being of the people.
Third, in our discussion of Khon Kaen, we made an interesting observation.
The smart city movement was initiated by local business leaders with strong
support from the general citizenry. These business leaders realized that there
is strong competition with other provinces, which have been placed at a higher
priority for smart city support. In addition, there is an increasing need for ex-
pansion of infrastructure and public services with tight budget restrictions. It is,
therefore, difficult to expect the central government to financially support the
implementation of the smart city in Khon Kaen.
The participants overcame this lack of support by establishing a corporation
that is jointly owned by the five contributing municipalities and does not rely on
central government funding. Theoretically, this sounds like a very logical and
a positive strategic decision. However, being financially independent from the
central government may run counter to the interests of the central bureaucracy
which, according to Riggs (1966), is the strongest political entity in Thailand. It
has endured and survived over time, brokering and sharing power with both
civilian and military governments. Under this political system, procurement sus-
tains the bureaucracy. For example, the bureaucrats can work in tandem with
the politicians to extract kickbacks from government procurements, or they
can earn money through tactics utilizing delayed payments (Kamnuansilpa &
Laochankham, 2018). Being a self-funded project, as in the case of Khon Kaen
smart city, means it is a no-frills project with little, if any, fat to build in for the
Thai bureaucracy. In addition, it might be perceived as encroaching onto the bu-
reaucratic turf.
Fourth, another interesting distinction between Khon Kaen smart city and
smart cities in other parts of Thailand has to do with the degrees of responsiveness
 Thailand Smart Cities     153

to the needs of local citizens. Both Phuket and Chiang Mai Provinces focus on
tourists and visitors as the beneficiaries of the smart city improvements, includ-
ing drawing in digital nomads from overseas (Leesa-Nguansuk, 2018), whereas
making a better life for the local residents is the primary goal of Khon Kaen.
Another significant difference is that Khon Kaen has applied the “quintuple
Helix model” of Carayannis and Campbell (2010), which is a conceptual frame-
work for a transdisciplinary analysis of sustainable development and social
ecology of which the smart city is a part. From the very beginning, Khon Kaen
smart city has added three additional variables into the operational model of
a smart city. Rather than just looking at the bivariate relationship between the
roles of the public sector and the achievement of the development goals for sus-
taining a smart city, the business leaders and civic groups in Khon Kaen have
sought the support of the public sector (both central and local governments) and,
in addition, have built a close working relationship with the College of Local
Administration of Khon Kaen University. Moreover, they have gone through the
media for promotional materials and advertisements to rally support from both
the public sector and the private citizens. (e.g. see CH7News, 2017; NewsNBT
THAILAND, 2018; Smart-Cities Clean Energy, 2017; Startup Thailand, 2016; Thai
PBS, 2018). We contend that a true smart city must be geared toward the local
community rather than focused on tourists or non-locals. This is more likely to
occur when the policy initiative is home-grown rather than a top-down bureau-
cratic program.
Finally, based on these four examples as well as successful cases of smart cit-
ies found in other countries (Harms, 2016; Peters, 2017; Ojo, Curry, & Janowski,
2014), we argue that in order for Thailand to be able to reap the maximum bene-
fits from the smart city policy, Thailand needs to focus more on local governance
and reform of the bureaucracy. In order to accomplish this, Thailand must go
from a central, top-down government to one that fosters functional democracy,
good governance, and responsive bureaucracy through all levels of government
(Kamnuansilpa, 2017). The Twenty-Year National Strategy of Thailand (2017–
2036), which the current government is pursuing, has also addressed the need
for public sector management reform. However, as of now, it seems very opti-
mistic and its effects are still too far ahead to see. In addition, the time frame of
20 years is too long to wait before we can be guaranteed of a successful adoption
of the smart city as a viable national social and economic development strategy
to help lift the country economically.
Recently, three more Thai cities were designated smart cities at the 2018
ASEAN Summit in Singapore, including Chon Buri, Phuket, and Bangkok
(Geducos, 2018). The reasoning behind these choices remains unclear. Obviously,
preparedness and the likelihood of being successful are not among the main rea-
sons. Regardless of the selection criteria, it is likely that they will not be much
different from other cities. Unless there are comprehensive structural, cultural,
and behavioral improvements as a result of the reforms, they are all destined
to fail. Thai bureaucracy, which is overseeing the three designated smart cities,
is much more interested in ruling and governing through preference for uni-
formity over diversity and applying rules and orders over reason. This process
154      Asian Politics & Policy—Volume 11, Issue 1—2019

of governing is at the expense of effective public services and facilitation of the

development of smart cities.

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