The Spatial Adjustment Of Provincial-Level Administrative Division Of Thailand In The Perspective Of Scale Re-Scaling And Territorial Restructuring

Since the end of World War II,Thailand has been continuously facing the problem of “imbalance”.There is a serious imbalance phenomenon of urban development between various regions in Thailand,which is reflected in the fact that Bangkok,the capital of Thailand,is the only primate city in Thailand,which has an extremely high degree of urbanization.While the rest of the cities of Thailand has had a shockingly low level of urbanization and incredibly slow growth rate.To solve this problem,the Thai Government has carried out the spatial adjustment of Provincial-level administrative division reforms.The research uses the perspective of scale-rescaling and territorial restructuring to study all the cases of reforms after the end of World War II by analyzing from their backgrounds,factors,methods,the processes of cases and find out the pattern of reforms.The study found that there are mainly four patterns of reforms,which are partitioning pattern,merging pattern,regrouping pattern,and provincial-to-special-administrative-area transformation pattern.In the process of administrative division adjustment by partitioning pattern,merging pattern,regrouping pattern will lead to territorial restructuring and scalerescaling between the original region and the new region.Administrative area partitioning pattern is to partition an area of one province into two parts the one former province and new province,by establishing a new province in the marginal part.During the process,The government will delegate power to the newly established government,the new government has greater management power;the administrative level of the new government has been upgraded to the Provincial level,and there is no more subordinate relationship between former region and new region and the scale of population,territory and economies has become smaller.Secondly,the regrouping pattern is basically the same as the partitioning pattern,the difference is that the administrative area regrouping will lead to the territorial restructuring of the border adjustment in several areas.Thirdly,the merging pattern is to merge several small areas with single-center cities into one large with multi-center city.The government takes back the power of a government in the original area and delegates power to the main government.the administrative level of revoked government will be downgraded to several district-administrative district.after that,losing its original management power and self-determination right,now be under controlled by the government of the main province.During the process,the scale of population,territory and economies becomes larger.The last pattern is provincial-tospecial-administrative-area transformation pattern,this pattern is to reform of the provincial administrative area into a special administrative area,The process of this pattern has not led to the scale-rescaling of power,hierarchy,administrative relations,and scale.In 11 cases,the most important factor in the adjustment of administrative divisions is the political factor,the location of the city ranks second,and the history and culture rank third.From the perspective of adjustment objectives,the four adjustment patterns are mainly aimed at improving administrative efficiency.The difference lies in the second objective.The partitioning pattern and regrouping pattern aim to maintain social stability and national security.Merging pattern aims to increase the population,economy and geographical scale and provincial-to-special-administrative-area transformation pattern aims to increase the flexibility of administrative management in the area.