Sai Latt

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • Even before the 1 February 2021 coup, the November 2020 general elections’ polarizing effects had a negative impact on the reconciliation process in Myanmar. • The majority of the electorate continued to support parties and their leaders despite their failures to address the country’s main problems. • This support is based on a...

The Myanmar Spring Revolution will mark its third anniversary next month. Three years ago, on February 1, 2021, military generals staged a coup against the democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government. After this erratic coup d'etat, the military violently cracked down against the peaceful protests-predominantly held by stu...

This month marks the second anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar. This brief provides a general overview of the political situation in Myanmar two years after the military coup. Assessing India's approach, the brief argues that India's engagement with Myanmar's ethnic and opposition forces to restore stability and democratic rule would bette...

This article makes two interrelated arguments. First, most politicians, activists and opinion makers in Myanmar see the political divide between the ruler and the ruled — or between authoritarian ruler and democratic forces — as the main problem sustaining violence, conflict, and oppression. However, a second set of divides— inter-ethnic and intra-...

In short, whether a coincidence or not, the nationalist movement’s key narratives of protecting race-and-religion continue to contribute to blocking recognition of diversity and equality as necessary conditions for national reconciliation. Looking at the ways in which the forces of democratization became public enemies, receiving the brunt of publ...

national reconciliation requires recognizing the diverse pasts of minority groups—autonomous histories that are as dignified as that of the dominant group. Regardless of bloody histories, in which groups mutually violated each other, seeing each other’s histories through more dignified, diversity-friendly and humanistic lenses is called for. As the...

This chapter moves beyond the macro-level analysis of violence towards the micro-level or individual level. It also moves beyond the realm of “national politics” towards studying violence in the context of everyday socioeconomic situations. It moves towards investigating if, and how, the soldiers who are the implementers of violence can be seen as...

Ethnic politics are an important, but under-examined, dynamic in the restructuring of agrarian labour. This paper examines how the discursive construction of ethnic identity has facilitated the particular form of agrarian intensification and labour restructuring under way in the uplands of Thailand. Agricultural intensification, followed by the pro...

One major aim of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) integration programme, supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is to foster regional ‘community’ for sharing resources, people and financial flows. This ‘community’ is the target of both economic growth and poverty reduction. The emphasis on ‘community’ in the ADB's mushrooming quantity of...

Class is back on the critical social research agenda in ways that are different from the class reductionism of “old” Marxism. Contemporary theorizations integrate culture, gender, and other axes of identity in interpreting socioeconomic processes. This article argues that the intersection of culture, gender, and class cannot adequately explain comp...