The government's new campaign against dark influences is its most dramatic initiative to date. If successful it would, as the prime minister says, be a social revolution. But what really can we expect?

What is "influence"? The word became popular in the 1980s when business wealth began to eat into the old absolute power of the generals and bureaucrats. That old power was called amnat, or "the authority which derives from an official position or is sanctioned by law". The new influence was "power which a man exerts beyond his authority". Influence was a mix of money, networks of friends, and violence.

The two types of power are closely related. Officials consistently abuse their Authority. District officers ask for bribes all the time. Policemen seize property and women. Forest officials build themselves holiday homes inside national reserves. Provincial governors do silly things like building monuments that the local people don't want.

Ordinary people cannot prevent this abuse of Authority by recourse to law. Instead they turn to the big guys in the locality, to Influence. The big guys can stand up to the officials. They can help out when people are in trouble. Nithi Eoseewong called the way people relied on Influence to counterbalance the oppression and abuse of Authority the "true wisdom of Thai society".

On the face of it, parliament would seem to be part of Authority. After all, the duty of MPs is to make the laws. But in truth, the parliamentary system is founded on Influence. Electorates have tended to choose the biggest, most influential people in the locality to send to parliament, in the belief they will be the most effective in checking Authority. A really good MP can even get a stupid provincial governor transferred to another province or an inactive post. Elections are fought with the tools of Influence-money, networks of friends, and violence. Elections are festivals of Influence.

The bigger Influences also tend to be the darker Influences. That's because the big guys who dabble in criminal businesses like smuggling and drugs make the highest profits, tend to have the most elaborate business networks, and are ready to use violence or intimidation. Next in the ranking of Influence are businessmen who practice a legitimate trade, but bend the laws to increase its profits. They pay bribes to get a valuable concession. They use contacts to secure the documentation for land ownership. They use threats and strong-arm tactics to discourage or destroy business rivals.

Most Influence is dark to some extent. So it is no surprise that the big problem in launching the current campaign against dark influences has been defining just what dark means. Set the definition too wide, and almost the whole parliament could be at risk. Set it too narrow, and nothing will be achieved.

But even supposing some reasonable definition can be worked out, will the campaign suppress Influence, or simply rearrange it?

Thaksin believes that business management principles are superior to bureaucratic principles or legal principles. His big campaigns are run on this basis. Set numerical targets and time limits. Incentivise with rewards and punishments. Use cash to get results.

But the application of these principles have not been so effective to solve problems of government. Remember Thaksin's first effort. He promised to solve Bangkok's traffic congestion. He set a target of six months. He paid special bonuses to traffic police out of his own deep pockets. This didn't solve the traffic problem. It just moved it around from one part of the city to another. After six months, nothing substantial had changed.

The current drugs campaign has been similar. A time limit of three months was set. Officials were incentivised with a bounty per pill found, a percentage of any assets seized, and a threat they could lose their jobs if they missed the numerical targets. Again it is not clear whether the campaign is solving the drug problem or just rearranging it a bit. Methamphetamines are still on sale, though recent arrests suggest it is useful to be a policeman if you still want to trade. Users are shifting to glue, heroin and other substitutes. Foreign couriers are replacing local ones.

Stamping out Influence is a lot trickier than stamping out drugs or traffic jams, because Influence is the stuff of Thai politics. In 1991-2, the military junta announced it would get rid of dark influences. A well-known gangster was machine-gunned in his car on a suburban Bangkok street. It was widely believed that the junta "opened the door" for this gangland killing in order to intimidate other "dark influences" (any similarity between that tactic and the killings in the current drugs campaign is not coincidental at all). But the junta's campaign did not destroy Dark Influence. Instead many of the godfathers rushed to join the junta's own political party. Meanwhile in Bangkok and elsewhere, the protection rackets were taken over by people in uniform. Khaki and green began to fight turf wars by armed stand-offs in nightclub carparks. The problem of Influence was not solved. It was just rearranged a bit.

Thaksin's intentions in launching a campaign against Dark Influences are undoubtedly good. But as with the campaigns over traffic and drugs, he is focussing on effects rather than causes. Implementation will be even more difficult because Influence is fundamentally political. There is a big risk that the campaign will not stamp out Influence, just rearrange it a bit - in favour of the party in power

Any campaign against Influence which is overseen by General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh deserves a healthy dose of public scepticism. Achieving a social change is not like making a business profit. The traffic will improve when the road:vehicle ratio changes; drugs will decline when kids don't see a need to get lit; and Influence will fade when ordinary people can rely on protection from the law.