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Intractable long-term or chronic refugee communities present serious challenges to common refugee-management strategies. We argue that they are best understood and managed by using adaptive techniques drawn from complexity theory. To illustrate this strategy, we use the refugee communities situated along the Thai–Myanmar border as a case study. The article outlines the key elements of complexity theory, the complexity lens, for use in analysis of the problem. It then applies the complexity lens to the case study: identifying and describing the actors and networks that compose the complex system of the Thai–My refugees (the complex system) and the dynamic developments within that community over time (dynamic development). Based on this analysis, the article utilizes the complexity lens to evaluate the policy options commonly offered for the management of this ongoing refugee situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses cross-country comparative analysis to explore how community health workers (CHWs) deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. It combines insights from the street-level bureaucracy literature and an interpretive approach with original data from semi-structured interviews with CHWs in Kenya and Thailand. Findings show that how a public health system is organized (decentralization versus centralization) affects CHWs' initial responses to the outbreak. While CHWs in Thailand's centralized system conform to the "state agent" tradition by referring to the hierarchical chain of command, those in Kenya's decentralized system follow the "citizen agent" tradition by prioritizing community safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

dministrative reform is a political, not managerial, issue. This study argues that administrative reform is highly influenced by realities of bureaucratic politics. Reforms usually mean the struggle over power between involved actors. There are evidences of patterns of power struggle among and between politicians and bureaucrats. Including contestation among bureaucrats that are responsible for public management reform. These power struggles and contestations explain the decision-making processes for designing and implementing administrative reform policies and shifts of power relations. This article proposes a new framework to advance the concept of bureaucratic politics, with reference to administrative reform policy. It highlights the missing link between public policy and public management reform literature by revisiting the power of politicians and bureaucrats in making reform policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses one aspect of the problem of Thailand's ongoing insurgency, namely the bureaucratic structure in the far south and the role of the bureaucrat as an agent. The discourse on structure emphasizes the need to make the bureaucracy better "integrated" (buranakarn) in order to improve coordination among the key agencies responsible for tackling the conflict. During 2004-09 there were persistent changes to the bureaucratic structure in the far south which hindered the effective implementation of policies. At the same time, the discourse on bureaucrats focused on the need to send "virtuous" individuals to the region, to remove those who had misbehaved, and to offer training and special rewards for those who remained. Increasingly, fewer bureaucrats are willing to work in the troubled provinces which has led public agencies to implement new recruitment strategies. A relatively recent development has been a policy of localization whereby local Malay Muslims are appointed to the bureaucracy so as to create a more representative bureaucracy in the region. This paper provides details of the above issues and discusses the importance of understanding the two levels of analysis of structure and agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature in the field of New Public Administration has focused mainly on individual countries especially the successes and failures of public sector reform efforts. This article introduces a more comparative perspective by looking at the different ways governments are managing public sector reforms without judging the successes and failures. The authors take an inductive approach by first introducing descriptions of reform works in six countries: Thailand, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Malaysia, the United States, and Japan. Then all the cases are synthesized into a framework for comparison. Findings from the study show that there are no distinct patterns. Thus, there is no one golden rule for organizing reform work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-production is an area of policy making in many countries which has received little treatment in the policy studies literature. It has been studied in the field of public administration and public management however, albeit mainly in the case of education-related activities in Scandinavian countries. Using the cases of co-production of support services for the disabled and the elderly in the little-studied programs found in Croatia and Thailand as illustrative examples, this article examines how the concept of co-production can be viewed as an example of the use of a new policy tool, bringing together the insights of both policy and management theory in order to understand its origins and evolution. The article highlights the importance of viewing co-production using an integrated lens if studies of co-production are to advance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]