Replication data for: An Assessment of the Corruption Situation in Thailand

The purpose of this research was to describe the current corruption situation in Thailand. The structures of anti-corruption organizations in Thailand including their roles, responsibilities, and processes of operations were investigated. Secondary data related with anti-corruption, in addition with primary data from the opinion and experience survey of business firms contacting with government officials were analyzed to describe corruption situation in Thailand. Secondary data and the survey from business people consistently showed that the corruption situation did not improve compared with the last five years. Moreover, the chronological political events and corruption at the national level dating back almost the past two decades it had shown that Thailand had corruption in every government. The corruption was often regarded as a condition, cause, and pretext for coup d’état, leading to changes in politics in the country time after time. When a new government was formed eventually, it was unavoidable for that government to get involved with corruption. From the survey of business sector, it was revealed that paying bribe was a normal and traditional practice. It was known, without any request, how much extra money or what amount of bribe should be paid for each service. After the bribe payment, business processes were well facilitated as agreed by both parties. From the business people’s current viewpoints, the most important cause of corruption was the lack of morality. Other causes such as inefficient quality of inspecting systems, ineffective administration, penalty procedures, and law enforcement remained the same important ranks as in the last five years. The quality and efficiency of public services, which often been presumed as the reason for the business firms to give bribes, was disclosed to have clearly improved in the last five years in most of public services. However, paying bribes to dishonest government officials did not show the sign of decline. It was also found in this study that the methods of corruption had been transformed into various and more complicated forms.