ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the changing power relationships among the major actors involved in the politics of telecommunications in response to the changes in political regimes. The politics of regulatory reform in Thailand since the mid-1980s has passed through two phases, each with a rather distinctive trajectory. The first phase, which covered the last years of the fifth Prem government and the Chatichai government, was characterized by the continuation of a state monopoly over all parts of the telecommunications industry, slightly modified by the beginnings of deregulation and of some private participation in several limited sectors. In the second phase, from the overthrow of the Chatichai government in February 1991 and its replacement by the first Anand government until the late 1990s, much more rapid progress was made toward bringing down the state monopoly both by modifications of the law governing telecommunications and through increasing liberalization of the industry.
