When a Score of 93 Sits Beside a Rank of 107: The Perception-Trace Gap in Assessing Good Governance in Thai Local Administrative Organizations

Abstract

Thai research on good governance in local administrative organizations reports, with striking consistency, that governance is practised at a high level and that administrative performance is correspondingly high. The national Integrity and Transparency Assessment conducted by the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission points the same way: in fiscal year 2024 the national average reached 93.05 out of 100 and 7,696 agencies passed the threshold. Yet in the same year Thailand scored 34 out of 100 on the Corruption Perceptions Index and ranked 107th of 180 countries. This academic article argues that the divergence is not a puzzle to be explained away but a measurement problem to be confronted, and that the regulator has effectively conceded the point by convening consultations in October 2025 to overhaul the assessment instrument so that it better reflects actual transparency and complaint statistics. Drawing on documentary analysis, the article contends that prevailing instruments measure two things that are easy to observe, namely the perceptions of respondents and the existence of documents and mechanisms, while leaving unmeasured the thing that matters, namely whether those mechanisms actually change decisions. Qualitative Thai research showing that local executives conceive the rule of law as mere legal compliance, and the phenomenon of token participation, are both symptoms of this gap. The article proposes the concept of a perception-trace gap and a three-rung evidence ladder distinguishing perception, existence of mechanism, and traceable influence on decisions, together with candidate indicators for the third rung.