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Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity.
... In Myanmar, the 136 officially recognized ethnic groups have been categorized into eight national races (herein "ethnic nationalities"). The largest ethnic nationality (Bamar, or Burmese) comprise about two-thirds of the population and dominate political structures and the military (Smith, 1991;Taylor, 2009, 62, 92;Walton, 2013). Table 7.1 provides an overview of the major categories of ethnic groups for each case. ...
... The military seized power, abolished the existing federal institutions and ruled (under one guise or another) for the next 50 years. According to the new prime minister at the time, General Ne Win, "federalism is impossible, it will destroy the Union" (cited in Smith, 1991). But the ethnic nationalities' fight for federalism, or independence, continues. ...
This chapter examines the evolution of Spain and the United Kingdom (UK) as federal political systems. Neither Spain nor the UK qualifies as a full-fledged federation, but an identifiable process of federalization has taken root in both cases. Unpacking the experience of political decentralization, the chapter examines the efficacy of current arrangements vis-à-vis the politics of accommodation, with specific reference to elements of symbolic recognition, self-rule and shared rule, and identifies ongoing challenges to the development of federalism in Spain and the UK. In discussing the origins, evolution and challenges of the territorial models in both cases, the analysis highlights the evolving practice of territorial reform in these political systems, notwithstanding the absence of a conscious federal teleology. The analysis shows that federalism—as an enhanced model of territorial accommodation—has much to offer both Spain and the UK, but hitherto remains a marginalized option for constitutional reform.
... With such pressure, Karen communities have struggled to maintain their family units, culture, and language. Smith (1999) refers to this as the 'Burmanisation' of the state with the end goal of either physically or culturally eliminating Myanmar's substantial minority groups. Consequently, it is evident to all concerned that such actions by Naypyidaw amounts of grievous violations of human rights, with some authors such as Pedersen (2011) making the argument, perhaps accurately, that this constitutes genocide. ...
... In all these instances, Naypyidaw has actively violated the principles of political freedom and natural justice (Davis, 2000). List of Human Rights grievances against the Karen communities by the Myanmar government as mentioned in Smith (1999), Bowman (2007) Currently there are moves being made by various NGO's and United Nations programmes in order to resolve the tensions that exist between political leaders in Myanmar and the Karen persons, and whilst such moves have been glacial, progress has been achieved in several fronts. Thailand, as a significant economic power in the region, shouldered the burden of accepting significant numbers of refugees from Myanmar with the number in 2015 reaching 72,900 registered refugees and another 51,500 persons in refugee-like status (UNHCR, 2016). ...
This paper explores the current and past practices of the government of Myanmar in its attempts to disenfranchise and disempower the sizeable minority of Karen peoples. The Karen, constituting a large community that stretches predominately over the two countries of Thailand and Myanmar is often overlooked because of the lack of readily available information regarding Myanmar in general and the Karen in particular. This paper views the issues that surround the Karen and the human rights violations they have suffered in the past 70 years at the hands of the dominant Burman government. Further, in attempts to tie this to the current Rohingya crisis in Myanmar's southwest, this paper also intends to use predictive forecasting assessing the future endgame of Naypyidaw, the government of Myanmar.
... During the British colonial era, Burman were classified geographically and economically rather than by the present-day ethnicity. The British divided the peripheries or the lowlands as 'states', which happens only in the modern concept of nation-state, however, nation-building was never a British priority (Smith, 1999). Colonial administration successfully created and maintained these divisions for easier control of the colony. ...
... The KIO eventually gained control over much of the border areas between Kachin State and Yunnan, and most rural areas in Kachin State. Throughout the 1970s and until the late 1980s, the KIO had half of Kachin State under its administration, with the central government controlling only 60 km of the 2100-km long Sino-Myanmar border, primarily the major towns and railway corridors (Smith 1999). ...
... The government was dominated by the majority Bamar Buddhists who had exclusive control of military and civilian institutions, despite the country's cultural and linguistic diversity. This unequal power share led to the marginalization of ethnic minority groups resulting in both armed conflict and non-violent political actions [84,87]. ...
Given Myanmars historical and socio-political context, hate speech spread on social media has escalated into offline unrest and violence. This paper presents findings from our remote study on the automatic detection of hate speech online in Myanmar. We argue that effectively addressing this problem will require community-based approaches that combine the knowledge of context experts with machine learning tools that can analyze the vast amount of data produced. To this end, we develop a systematic process to facilitate this collaboration covering key aspects of data collection, annotation, and model validation strategies. We highlight challenges in this area stemming from small and imbalanced datasets, the need to balance non-glamorous data work and stakeholder priorities, and closed data-sharing practices. Stemming from these findings, we discuss avenues for further work in developing and deploying hate speech detection systems for low-resource languages.
... Some groups sought their own state, while others considered the Myanmar state to be increasingly centralised and focused on serving the interests of the Bamar majority. By the late 1950s, Myanmar was already deeply into civil war, with claim-making solidifying around calls for independence or federalism (Smith 1991). The state reified and reinvented 'federalism' as a so-called promise to the various groups represented at Panglong at the eve of independence (Walton 2008). ...
... The initial purpose of annexation was to seek economic interests and security. For the sake of convenience, British government divided Myanmar into two distinctive areas-Ministerial Burma and the Frontier Areas respectively [3]. In Ministerial Burma, colonial government established the modern national administrative system and opened several new sectors. ...
... While Burma and East Bengal were controlled as British colonies, population mobility was managed between them to suit their labor needs (Lewa, 2004;Ullah, 2011). However, scholars such as Ibrahim (2017) and Smith (1993) have argued that the anxiety stems from the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942. While the Rohingyas were loyal to the British, the Buddhist majority led by General Aung San backed the Japanese. ...
Undoubtedly, the Rohingya crisis has been one among the most discussed issue in the last few years. The political exclusion and persecution revolve around the fault lines of modern nation-states built along the ethno-religious lines, making them the most persecuted minority in the world. Especially, post-global denunciation of the military crackdown in August 2017 and the United Nations accusing the country of “ethnic cleansing and genocide” led to the massive exodus of people to the neighboring countries and beyond. Yet, the existing political and protection space for stateless Rohingya refugees is extremely volatile due to the absence of legal mechanisms, un-documentedness, and rising security concerns globally often criminalizing them as illegal migrants/immigrants or threats to national security. Forcing them to live under continuous threat of detention, deportation, and forced relocation further tarnishes their identity between the man and the citizen, dumping them into a socio-legal limbo. Based on the ethnographic inquiry conducted among stateless Rohingya refugees living in semi-urban ghettoes of India- Delhi, Mewat, Hyderabad and Jammu, the article looks into the historical and political trajectory of exclusion, resistance, and counter-resilience of stateless Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar along exploring their refracted and displaced realities and complexities of “life” in asylum and protracted refugees in India. And, the responses made by national and international agencies to the crisis. In doing so, it provides a grim insight into the inadequate, inconsistent and highly uncoordinated national and international response to care and protection and aid politics that have contributed to the collective failure in addressing the crisis. Thereby, the study attempts to bring forth the wider debate upon issues of state and statehood, rights and humanitarianism within the nation-state paradigm.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
Dieses Kapitel analysiert das politische System des malaiisch-islamischen Sultanats Brunei Darussalam. Zunächst wird die historische Entwicklung von der Kolonialzeit bis zur Unabhängigkeit des Kleinstaates im Jahre 1984 dargestellt und die Struktur des bruneiischen Rentenstaats ausgeleuchtet, dessen Wohlstand hauptsächlich auf dem Export von Erdöl und Erdgas basiert. Anschließend werden das Verfassungs-, Regierungs- und Rechtssystem der dynastisch-autoritären Monarchie analysiert. Es folgt die Darstellung des Aufbaus der staatlichen Verwaltung, der Gründe für das Fehlen eines bedeutsamen Systems der politischen Parteien, der zivil-militärischen Beziehungen und des Sicherheitssektors, sowie der politischen Kultur und Zivilgesellschaft Bruneis. Wie die Analyse der politischen Institutionen und Strategien der autokratischen Herrschaftssicherung zeigt, basiert die Stabilität des autoritären Regimes auf der Kombination „weicher“ Repression, der politischen Tauschlogik des Rentenstaats, sowie der Legitimation der autokratischen Monarchie im Rahmen des Konzepts der „Melayu Islam Beraja“. Wahlen, Parteien und Parlamente, denen die aktuelle Autokratien-Forschung große Bedeutung beimisst, spielen in der monokratisch organisierten, absoluten Monarchie eine geringe Rolle.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Singapore’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments. The political system of Singapore appears to contradict conventional wisdom in political science. Despite a very high level of social and economic modernization, a small group of administrative and political elites governs the city-state autocratically. Despite its authoritarian regime type, it scores well on established measures for the rule of law, bureaucratic quality, and public goods provision. While PAP has been in power since 1959, the party as organization is almost invisible in daily life. Despite the very substantial and interventionist role of the state in economic development, Singapore ranks among the freest market economies worldwide. The city is an international media hub and home to one of the most connected digital infrastructures and digital societies, yet its media is unfree. Finally, the state tightly administrates and regulates political and social activities, and the government in Singapore, as all authoritarian governments do, relies on repression to guarantee regime survival, its use is highly selective and of low intensity, stressing self-regulation with the mere threat of coercion. Even though genuine opposition parties regularly achieve between 20 and 40% of the total vote, they are barely represented in parliament.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of the Philippine political system and summarizes its history and recent developments. Despite the 30 years of democratic politics following the People’s Power Revolution in 1986, the political system of the Philippines remains a highly defective democracy. There are regular and strongly contested elections, and parties are free to organize and campaign for votes. There is a vibrant civil society, a pluralist media, and decentralization reforms that have brought the government closer to the people. However, human rights violations are widespread and have further increased in recent years. Nevertheless, the relevant political elites and social actors seem to accept the democratic institutions as the only game in town. Even the military, despite not being completely under civilian control, seems to have made its peace with democracy. Yet two caveats are in order: First, major political players, including President Duterte (2016–2022), have an electoralist rather than liberal understanding of what constitutes democracy. Secondly, elite support for democracy appears to be rooted, at least to some extent, in the fact that the post-Marcos democratic order has been essential for the preservation of elite control over the political process and its outcomes. This is manifested in the lack of political support for constitutional reforms, which would eliminate the presidential term limit or introduce a shift from presidentialism to a parliamentary system of government. Nonetheless, divisive politics, ongoing insurgencies, and the rise of an autocratic strongman such as Duterte reflect the fragility and weakness of Philippine democracy in successfully tackling problems relating to social, economic, and political inequality, both between social classes and between ethnic groups. In fact, vast segments of the population remain barred from equal access to economic opportunities and life chances in general.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
Vietnam is a communist one-party regime in transition. With the implementation of doi moi, the Communist Party of Vietnam replaced a centrally planned economy with a “socialist-oriented market economy”. The transition from a fully planned economy to a mixed economy generated dynamic economic growth and socioeconomic modernization that puts the communist party in a potentially vulnerable position. The party has reacted resolutely against any demands for political liberalization or a more open political process. Overall, it appears that the communist rulers have successfully adapted the pillars of regime stability to changing international and domestic contexts. The strategy of economic transformation and institutional innovation has enabled the CPV to keep its regime coalition together and to reconcile increasingly diverse sectoral and regional interests. Today, the CPV is no longer a revolutionary party striving for a utopian socialist ideal, but a bureaucratic party seeking to preserve the political status quo. Three decades of reform have generated conflict between the government and society in general, within the party, and within different social groups in various forms, indicated by a steadily growing number of protests since the late 1990s. But even with these challenges, communist party rule in Vietnam appears resilient and adaptive. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Vietnam’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
This final chapter discusses trends in democratization and autocratization in Southeast Asia in the late 20th and early 21st century, the structural vulnerabilities of democracy as well causes of autocratization as well as features of autocratic consolidation in the region. While there were several democratic transitions in the region between 1986 (Philippines) and 2002 (Timor-Leste), none of them resulted in institutionally coherent, liberal democracies. All Southeast Asian democracies remain “defective” and are subject to legitimacy crises, deficiencies in the rule of law, or problems with their sociopolitical structures of representation and integration. Autocrats in the region remain in power if they manage to grant their “winning coalition” and members of the moderate opposition access to private goods but maintain their ability to counter opponents or dissidents by coercive force. Especially the well-institutionalized regime parties in Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam have maintained social stability by balancing elite interests. Successful management of interethnic conflict in Singapore and Malaysia or winning independence in Vietnam, Laos, or Myanmar provide an important additional source of regime legitimacy. In view of the inherent weaknesses of democracy and the resilience of autocracy, it would be naïve to expect too much progress in democratization and democratic governance in this part of the world in the near future. On the contrary, it is likely that democracy in Southeast Asia will be even more on the defensive in the coming years than it has been in the past decade.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Malaysia’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments. Compared to most other political systems in Southeast Asia, Malaysian politics since 1957 has exhibited an unusually high degree of political and social stability. The elite pact between political, economic, and communal elites resulted in a political and economic order that protected the interests of both elites and their ethnic constituencies. The resulting competitive authoritarian regime guaranteed efficient and peaceful conflict resolution within the ethnically segmented society, as the control of coercive, symbolic, and economic power enabled Barisan Nasional to manage existing conflicts peacefully, to co-opt relevant elites, and to survive political crises like the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998. Nonetheless, popular support for the incumbent government coalition started to crumble in the 2000s. In 2018, UMNO-Barisan Nasional’s 61-year reign in office ended, when a coalition of opposition parties headed by Mahathir Mohamad, a former BN-Prime Minister, won the 14th General Elections and formed a coalition government. The years following the turnover of government have been a period of turbulent and sometimes chaotic coalition politics. The country saw the rise and collapse of two coalition governments, and finally, a comeback of UMNO to power in August 2021.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
The Kingdom of Cambodia has experienced a threefold transformation in the last thirty years: from civil war to post-war reconstruction; from a socialist one-party state to multiparty autocracy; and from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. However, most political scientists seem to agree that Cambodia witnessed creeping autocratization in recent years. With no opposition in parliament, strongman Hun Sen is looking to prepare for a one-day transfer of power to his successor. Three factors in particular buffer the stability of his rule. First, Beijing will probably continue to help to sustain Hun Sen’s rule in the coming years. Second, the legitimacy of Hun Sen’s rule is based on his past and current successes in bringing peace, stability, and basic economic development to a war-torn country. In the long term, social and economic transformations may produce conditions that would weaken the regime’s time-proven systems of control. Meanwhile, there is little indication for such a development, especially since the opposition is too weak to initiate a peaceful mass uprising against the regime. Third, although not all members of the regime’s inner circle may welcome hereditary succession, it has the advantage that it does not invite for a struggle for power between senior elites that would threaten regime survival. History suggests that for the CPP elites, survival comes first. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Cambodia’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Brunei’s political system and summarizes recent developments. As the only ruling monarchy in Southeast Asia, the Sultanate of Brunei seems a political anachronism in the region. Yet it is also a beacon of political stability in Southeast Asia. The royalist regime has struck a balance between legitimation, co-optation, and repression as the three pillars of stable authoritarian rule. Rent income from petroleum and natural gas allowed the regime to finance a well-developed security apparatus to defend against internal and external challengers but also provide its citizens with a generous welfare state and employment opportunities in the public sector. An expanding state administration provides patronage to members of the political elite. To corroborate his normative claim to power, the Sultan has emphasized the idea of the Malay Islamic Monarchy in recent years and portrays himself as a proponent and guarantor of morally superior Islamic rule. So far, neither civil society nor political opposition parties is able or willing to challenge the ruling system.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, known as Burma prior to 1989, is one of the ethnically most heterogeneous societies in Southeast Asia with 135 officially recognized nationalities. Two inextricably linked challenges characterize politics and society in Myanmar since independence in 1948. The first one concerns state-building and nation-building in a post-colonial plural society. The other concerns the persistence of a praetorian state in which the Burmese Armed Forces (Tatmadaw) dominates politics, the economy, and society. To understand this twin problematique, this chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Myanmar’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments. A particular focus is on the failure of the military-initiated process of gradual disengagement from day-to-day politics from 2011 to 2021. The chapter analyzes the structures, processes and actors of Myanmar’s semi-democratic electoral authoritarianism, the shortcomings and failures of democratic reforms as well as the causes and consequences of the most military coup d’état of February 2021.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is the newest state in Southeast Asia. After more than two decades of Indonesian occupation, the country transitioned to independence and democratic government under the aegis of the United Nations. Since it gained independence in 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has strived to create a democratic and effective state out of the ashes of colonial rule, armed conflict, and foreign occupation. With the assistance of the United Nations and other international actors, the new nation has undergone enormous state- and democracy-building efforts since the turn of the century. As unique as this development has been, Timor-Leste still faces challenges that plague many post-colonial states, post-conflict societies, and least developed countries. Foremost among these is the emergence of a commodity oil-based rentier economy, weak state capacity, a vulnerable security situation, organized crime and gang violence, as well as challenging demographics. Despite these challenges, democracy has been surprisingly resilient. So far, the Timorese political system has not become overly fragmented and polarized, and the state—with international assistance—has avoided near collapse despite polarization between the east and west. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Timor-Leste’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments.
... The military also outlawed non-registered associations, whereas Buddhist monasteries and monks (sangha) were obliged to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Military intelligence infiltrated monasteries with informants, but the military also hoped to win sangha acceptance through generous donations (Hlaing, 2004, p. 393;Kramer, 2011, p. 8;Matthews, 1993;Smith, 1991). Yet, the government never tried to enforce a complete monopoly on associational (Lorch, 2006;Seekins, 2005). ...
As a landlocked country with a sparsely populated hinterland, politicized ethnic identities, and a history of a weak central power, Laos struggles with unfavorable circumstances for economic development and is a case of peripheral socialism. Since the mid-1980s, the LPRP has de facto abandoned its socialist experiment and is searching for new sources of legitimacy. It is no longer a revolutionary party striving to realize a utopian communist society but has become a ruling party looking to perpetuate its rule and stabilize the political status quo. Today, opaque decision-making procedures persist and weak government revenues due to inefficient institutions, widespread tax evasion, and persistent corruption have resulted in weak administrative capacity and a low quality of public services. This has limited the government’s ability to provide the wider population with public goods like universal access to education and health and social security, amplifying problems of socioeconomic inequality. The privatization of state enterprises owned by the military, party cadres, or their family members, legal reforms in order to strengthen government accountability and rule of law, and a conclusive anti-corruption policy are pressing challenges for political and economic transformation. However, reforms in these areas would threaten opportunities for self-enrichment by those elites whose political loyalty is essential for regime survival—especially cadre capitalists, military officers, and co-opted businessmen—and are therefore unlikely to succeed. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Laos’ political system and summarizes its history and recent developments.
... Burma's peripheries have taken on these characteristics in recent decades. They were the object of intense, vicious counterinsurgency under Ne Win (Smith 1999). However, a wave of ceasefires emerged after his fall from power that reconfigured the periphery into zones of VARIETIES OF CRISIS (CONTINUED) state-armed group collusion and bargaining (Callahan 2007;Buchanan 2016). ...
... Most of these armed groups emerged as ethnonational rebel movements seeking more autonomy or outright independence from an ethnocratic postcolonial state after the failure of post-independence settlement between the country's ethnic majority and its ethnic minorities over questions of equality and power sharing. Other armed groups included the Chinese-backed Communist Party of Burma, itself largely recruited from ethnic minority communities in the country's northern border areas (Smith 1999, pp. 102-110, Brenner 2019. ...
Smuggling economies make for ideal sources of revenue for rebel movements. Their clandestine and peripatetic nature and borderland geographies are often compatible with the requirements of guerrilla war. To weaken armed resistance and pacify conflict, state actors seek to undercut lucrative smuggling operations by restricting illicit trade flows, or reduce their profit margins by liberalising trade regimes. This chapter explores both such strategies through the lens of two empirical cases: US sanctions on so-called ‘conflict minerals’ in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo; and the liberalisation of border trade in Myanmar, by which the country’s generals sought to dry up smuggling revenues of rebel groups. Its findings suggest that, counterintuitively, attempts at economic pacification can increase rather than decrease violence, conflict and insecurity. This is not only because economic interventions in contexts of conflict can shift the incentives of warring factions in unforeseen ways, but also – and more fundamentally – economistic approaches to conflict operate on limited assumptions about the nature of political violence. They consequently fail at addressing the underlying political drivers of conflict.
... Initially, Aung San was a Marxist who became the first Secretary General of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). Over time, he became disenchanted with revolutionary Marxist ideology and subsequently promoted socialdemocratic values characterised by multiculturalism and secularism in equal measure (Smith, 1991). This shift made Aung San popular among ethnic minorities, and social democracy and secularism became the political aspiration of post-independence Burma. ...
Much of the revived interest in new – populist and/or authoritarian – styles of leadership has been a response to developments, initially in Europe, from the late1980s on, one aspect of which has been a renewed interest in charisma and in plebiscitary leadership. How applicable are approaches to leadership developed primarily in European political science and sociology to contemporary South and Southeast Asia? Building both on Weber’s classical account of charismatic authority, and on more recent work, we propose a relational conception of charisma as an interaction between leader and followers. This leader-follower dialectic is a key characteristic of contemporary populist politics. In order to investigate the ways in which populist leaders appeal to followers, we apply this relational conception of charisma to two Asian national cases: India under Narendra Modi and Myanmar under Aung San Suu Kyi during the – now arrested – period of transition from military rule. We shall be primarily concerned with one specific form of charisma: plebiscitary leadership.
... 92-101;Crouch, 2019, pp. 17-34;Smith, 1991;Taylor, 2009). For these reasons, ethnic nationalities have incessantly demanded full independence or federalism. ...
... 4 Like anywhere else in the country, the origins of government contestation and armed conflict in Rakhine State reach back to the late colonial and early postcolonial period. For decades Rakhine State was home to communist insurgents, Rakhine independentist and federalist rebel organizations, and to Muslim secessionists (Smith 1991). ...
... borders remained undefined until within living memory, and the The complexities of terrain and ethnicity pass over into political complexity. Smith (1999) lists 34 principal armed ethnic opposition groups in Burma in 1998. In 1999, the 20 sub-groups of the Karen alone were represented by four separate armed groups, reduced from six in 1990. ...
How did Communist Parties in Southeast Asia rise to the forefront of anti-colonial, then national politics? The confluence of clear programs of action, inclusionary recruitment strategies, and opportunism positioned Southeast Asian Communist Parties as leading nationalists. To create Popular Fronts, Indochinese and Indonesian Communist Parties recruited peoples from varied ideological, ethnic, and social backgrounds and worked with, and within, competing factions. Communist Parties in Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines emerged from World War II as national heroes, but failed to devise clear programs of action that appealed to majority/minority ethnic and urban populations. I chart the rise of Communism in Southeast Asia by examining pre-and post-World War II processes whereby Communist Parties either seized leadership of the nationalist struggle, or as a secondary movement worked with or against post-independence regimes.
Myanmar’s external economic relations during the 2010s can be broadly characterized as processes of re-integration with the outside world, thus paying the way for diversification away from dependence on its preeminent neighbor, China. A close examination, however, reveals a complex set of dynamics in Myanmar–China economic relations, particularly in the trade sector. A sectoral value chain analysis shows that Myanmar’s trade dependence on China rose rather rapidly during the early part of the decade, which was later halted by the lifting of Western sanctions. However, it was also found that the same process that helped Myanmar diversify away from China in the export sector simultaneously increased the country’s dependence on Chinese imports because of newly established global value chains. Overall trends can be explained by considering geographic scale and country positions specific to the value chains of the key export sectors of natural gas, vegetables, and garments. The findings suggest that although the lifting of sanctions was pivotal, the improvement in Myanmar’s diplomatic relations with the West during the 2010s did not linearly reduce the country’s economic dependence on China.
This profile sheds light on the recent episode of contention triggered in Myanmar by the coup of 1 February 2021. Building on Tilly’s concept of repertoire, it maps out and describes some of the ways anti-coup protesters have been mobilized into contentious collective action. It points to inherited patterns of protest that are culturally specific to Myanmar. Historically forged repertoires of contention, such as call-and-response chants, silent strikes, and armed resistance have been (re)constructed and deployed in the weeks that followed the coup. Yet a new generation of Burmese activists has also tested, refined, and diffused innovative tactics and gendered strategies, such as the htamein protest and pots and pans protests. The hybridisation of Myanmar’s repertoire of contentious performances has typically derived from the evolving political environment, a collective memory of past cycles of protest, and new online opportunities for protesters to learn, borrow and adapt to local cultures several tools or tactics from global repertoires.
Border regions worldwide have gained prominence for how nation-states order, divide and understand the world. This is increasingly made explicit in the selective management of global commercial and human flows, leading to a paradoxical development and a major dilemma for the contemporary bordering practices in border regions: that of concurrently facilitating differentiated mobility while ensuring territorial integrity, securing both territories and flows. This paper argues that large-scale transnational infrastructures, by controlling, facilitating and channelizing cross-border mobilities, have emerged as a major instrument of b/ordering space in borderlands. This is especially relevant in Asia, where transnational, cross-border connectivity infrastructure projects have mushroomed, supported by political rhetoric, big budgets and diplomatic vigour. Grounded in long-term ethnographic research, the paper scrutinizes variegated infrastructure spaces in the seemingly remote and conflict-riddled borderlands between China’s Yunnan province and northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, subject to intensive Chinese infrastructure developments since the mid-1990s, further accelerated by the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015. The paper argues that infrastructures such as roads, plantations and special economic zones have started to regulate these volatile and contested borderlands more effectively than the official boundaries that delimit complex territorialities in the border region.
This article adds to the emerging ‘temporal turn’ in peace studies by addressing methodological questions about how temporality can be captured and explored in empirical studies. Developing our methodological tools for exploring time and temporality, we argue, is critical to move beyond the supposed linear temporality of peace processes, and make visible alternative temporal frameworks that shape everyday experiences and contestations around peace in conflict-affected contexts. Drawing on a study of two conflict-affected areas in Myanmar, we contribute towards this aim through a discussion of how life history diagrams helped us trace temporal conflicts between overarching narratives of political transition and everyday experiences of insecurity. This facilitated a deeper understanding of how relationships between war and peace, and between past, present and future, were manifested and made sense of in people’s everyday lives. Our use of life history diagrams revealed temporal conflicts between the dominant, linear temporality of the Myanmar transition, and more complex and cyclical temporal frameworks people used to describe their realities. Life history diagrams also facilitated narratives that troubled an events-based temporality focused on macro-political shifts such as ceasefire agreements and elections, and instead foregrounded everyday experiences of continuous insecurity and struggle.
COVID-19 is a nonhuman threat that has thrust disease to the center of discourses about geopolitics, security, and national sovereignty. This chapter examines the multilateral, regional, and national dimensions of COVID-19 as the pandemic has played out in Southeast Asia. National vignettes are utilized to reveal different geopolitical dimensions of COVID-19 responses and influences. COVID-19 has had enormous implications for migrant workers worldwide, which may reinforce preexisting prejudices and practices of exclusion. In Singapore’s case, migrant infection clusters have generated a growing state and public recognition of the nation’s dependence on foreign workers as part of its political economic drive for growth and survival. The use of “war metaphors” as national propaganda against the disease and as a means for state-nation-building are explored in the case of Vietnam. Even a force as deadly as a global pandemic cannot prevent humanmade geopolitical rifts from becoming deeper. The chapter explores how the military in Myanmar have exploited the timing of pandemic and targeted public health workers in order to strengthen a hold over the country following a military coup. Finally, the chapter considers “ways forward,” and suggests that we draw inspiration from frontline workers, everyday struggles, and the realm of public health in order to seek sustainable meanings of justice and security.KeywordsMedical diplomacyMilitary coupMigrant workersASEANNational geo-bodiesSingaporeVietnamMyanmar
This Element explores religious nationalism in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism and how it manifests in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. At the core, nationalists contend that the continuation of their group is threatened by some other group. Much of these fears are rooted in the colonial experience and have been exacerbated in the modern era. For the Hindu and Buddhist nationalists explored in this Element, the predominant source of fear is directed toward the Muslim minority and their secular allies. For Sikhs, minorities within India, the fear is primarily of the state. For Muslims in Pakistan, the fear is more dynamic and includes secularists and minority sects, including Shias and Ahmadis. In all instances, the groups fear that their ability to practice and express their religion is under immediate threat. Additionally, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim nationalists wish for the state to adopt or promote their religious ideology.
Expanding on the nexus of art and ethnography in contemporary Thailand, I take a case study approach in this paper to apprehend the film Din Rai Dan (Soil Without Land) through an ethnographic framework. Completed in 2019 by Nontawat Numbenchapol, Din Rai Dan was shot at the Shan State Army camp, at the border between Thailand and Myanmar. Straddling compelling visual aesthetics and thorough, on-site research, I regard ethnography in Din Rai Dan as the enabling factor in enacting artistic and interventive agency on the relation of the object-subject of inquiry, that is, the Shan State Army community. To do so, this study approaches Din Rai Dan from the perspectives of filmmaker and film subject, as well as filmmaker and film viewer. Together, these two viewpoints mutually reinforce the film’s ethnographic framework at the time of its making and deliverance to the public.
Also known as Soil Without Land, the film’s original Thai title ดินไร้แดน Din Rai Dan hints to the dearth of identity to a place that is the land on which we tread but do not belong. The word ดิน (din) is commonly combined with other words to denote earth, ground, or country. Used alone, din refers to the soil that plants need to grow and thrive, or the loam that sustains nature. Din is fundamental; it is what our planet is made of. ไร้ (rai) indicates something that is missing or lacking. แดน (dan) implies land or estate. Together, ไร้ แดน rai dan means borderless; while ดิน แดน din dan refers to manmade territory. Conjoined with the interlocutory rai, the title ดินไร้แดน Din Rai Dan literally means “no land,” evoking the absence, or lack, of the essence of society. Din Rai Dan is a figure of speech, a concept, that relays the condition of inclusion or exclusion to a nation or state—any state but in this case the Shan State.
Nepal and Myanmar are part of a new generation of emerging federal systems, built to hold together an ethnically divided state after conflict. Several of the features of their deliberations and federal systems are a result of this holding-together formation process and its association with democratization and conflict resolution. Other features are partly derivative of social structures, such as the political party systems and the make-up of the constituent units, while the balance of power between the three sets of actors, in a path-dependent context, is also critical (e.g., electoral systems). Both are test cases for simultaneous democratization and federalization, and of transformative versus incremental federalization. However, the prospects for further federalization in Myanmar declined considerably in early 2021, following a military coup. This demonstrates how tenuous federalization and democratization processes can be, and the depth of disagreement regarding the character and identity of the state. But should Myanmar complete its process toward a “genuine federalism” that ends the violent civil conflicts between armed organizations, and Nepal embed its transformation by devolving real power and resources to the provinces and local levels, they will provide evidence for the viability of a parallel transformation for conflict resolution.
This thesis aims to study the identity that being construct as a way to negotiate with the Thai state from the Wa immigrants in northern Thailand. This study employed multi-sited ethnographic study methods that cover three provinces including Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Maehongson, and through the non-physical space like the study also looks at the network of Wa immigrants that was established as an ethnic association entitles “the Lawa association in Thailand”. This research applies three concepts including “Ethnic Identity in constructivist paradigm”, “Becoming” and “Social and Cultural Capital”. There are three questions that this research addresses including 1) How do the Wa immigrant in Thailand construct new identity to tackle their stigmatized identity? 2) How the Wa utilized social and cultural capital in the process of identity construction? 3) How the connection between the Wa immigrant to Thailand’s indigenous Lua has transformed the meaning of stigmatized
Wa in Thailand?
The Wa immigrants who now living in Thailand could be divided into two groups including
1) the Wa immigrant that came to Thailand during the cold war period (the 1950s -1980s) and helps the Thai state suppress and prevent communist in Thailand. This group I would call “the first group”
2) the Wa immigrants who came to Thailand after 1999 when the “the southern Wa state” was established which create new Wa controlled territory located between Thailand and Myanmar border. This new territory became the important factor that led to new Wa immigrants moving to Thailand and also create “Wa Deng” which is the stigmatized identity that perceived the Wa as a drug manufacturer, therefore seen by the Thai state and media as a national security threat. This group I termed “the second group”
Around 1999 when the Wa identity was perceived as a threat to Thailand's national security,
the Wa immigrant especially the first group started to effect from stigmatized identity and respond by creating the whole new identity called “Lawa”. In the process of creating a new identity which could be seen as de-territorialized and re-territorialized stigmatized Wa identity has created new social and cultural capital for the Wa immigrant who now lives in Thailand to be able to align themselves with Thailand imagined community.
This article develops the concept of brokerage to analyse the systems of borderland governance that have underpinned processes of state formation and capitalist development in the conflict-affected Myanmar-China borderland region of northern Shan State since the late 1980s. It focuses on the brokerage arrangements that have developed between the Myanmar Army and local militias, and how the illegal drug trade has become integral to these systems of brokered rule. This article draws particular attention to the inherent tensions and contradictions surrounding brokerage. In the short term, deploying militias as borderland brokers has provided an expedient mechanism through which the Myanmar Army has sought to extend and embed state authority, and has also provided the stability and coercive muscle needed to attract capital, expand trade, and intensify resource extraction. However, at the same time, militias have sought to use their position as brokers to aggrandise their own power and counter the extension of central state control. In the longer term, brokerage arrangements have thus had the effect of reinvigorating systems of strongman borderland governance, further fragmenting the means of violence and the proliferation of drugs and disempowering non-militarised forms of political negotiation.
Opium poppy cultivation in Thailand fell from 12,112 hectares in 1961 to 281 ha in 2015. One outlier exists: Chiang Mai province's remote southwestern district, Omkoi. 90% of the district is a national forest reserve where human habitation is illegal. However, an ethnic Karen population has lived there since long before the law that outlawed them was created, unconnected to the state by road, with limited or no access to health, education and other services: they cultivate the majority of Thailand's known opium poppy, because they have little other choice. They increasingly rely on cash-based markets, their lack of citizenship precludes them from land tenure which might incentivize them to grow alternate crops, and their statelessness precludes them from services and protections. Nor is the Thai state the singular Leviathan that states are often assumed to be; it is a collection of networks with divergent interests, of whom one of the most powerful, the Royal Forestry Department, has purposely made Omkoi's population illegible to the state, and has consistently blocked the attempts of other state actors to complexify this state space beyond the simplicity of its forest. These factors make short-term, high-yield, high value, imperishable opium the most logical economic choice for poor Karen farmers residing in this "non-state" space.
Violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar again reached international attention in 2017 when the newly elected democratic government failed to protect Rohingya Muslims from persecution. While inter-group violence is endemic, however, there are clear and strong examples of peaceful co-existence. This article draws on interview and ethnographic evidence from a case of prevented violence in Mingalar Taung Nyunt, Yangon, in 2017, to argue that engaging with the local, complex, and dynamic process of communal violence prevention can enrich contemporary theories of communal violence. The article draws specifically on insights from the theories of political manipulation and civic engagement to argue that the most effective analysis of communal violence will focus on the power dynamics that shape local responses to escalating threat. In Mingalar Taung Nyunt, violence was prevented through the concerted effort of individuals in unique positions that provided them with the legitimacy and political power that allowed them to successfully de-escalate tensions. The article contributes to the understanding of communal violence by emphasising how the role and importance of inter-group associations, government bodies, and others is shaped by the laws and norms of the community in which violence is escalating. The article’s conclusions furthermore outline how the recent military coup in the country will destabilise local peace-keeping efforts in central Myanmar and how such institutions may be rebuilt.
Rebel groups govern significant parts of territory worldwide. They often deliver crucial public goods and services to populations under their control. Scholarship on rebel governance commonly explains this with the need for armed groups to generate local and international legitimacy. We argue that this understanding of rebel governance as an instrumental means to power is insufficient. Instead, we propose a novel conceptualization of rebel governance as competing biopolitics. Tracing biopolitical technologies of rebel rule reveals the productive functions of war-time social orders for molding populations into imagined communities in direct opposition to the existing nation state. We develop this perspective by mobilizing Foucault's work in conjunction with Chatterjee's postcolonial understanding of governmentality in contexts of postcolonial state- and nation-formation, and empirical research on the Pat Jasan in northern Myanmar. Linked to the Kachin rebellion, this movement has fought against a devastating narcotics crisis with biopolitical interventions that form the Kachin nation body amidst protracted ethnonational conflict. Beyond shedding light on one of the world's longest running but least-researched civil wars, this offers three distinct contributions to international studies: exploring non-state armed groups as actors of public health, theorizing the sociological underpinnings of rebel governance, and developing the concept of biopolitics beyond the nation state.
Drawing on interviews with 20 young Myanmar citizens from Yangon and Mawlamyine, this paper contrasts the educational experiences and perceptions of Burman and ethnic minority youth to illustrate Myanmar’s citizenship crisis, which fuels the grievances of ethnic minorities through their restricted citizenship vis-à-vis the Burman majority’s appropriation of citizenship. It offers a unique comparative analysis of Burman and ethnic minority youth citizens’ accounts to illustrate the ‘Burman privilege’ hypothesis and contributes to the limited evidence on Myanmar youth. I suggest that Burman-ness operated as a privileged identity in the education system to generate normative and institutional benefits for Burmans while constituting ethnic minority citizens as strangers estranged from their citizenship.
Between 2011 and 2020 Myanmar experienced significant social and political changes as a result of a series of reforms introduced by the former military junta. In this article I examine how the broadening of personal hopes and aspirations through new community-based English educational sites during this period influenced young people’s understandings of eudaimonic wellbeing. Teleological theories of eudaimonia often imply a degree of coherence in conceptions of the self, virtue and human flourishing. Drawing from recent work in anthropology, I argue that conflicting frameworks of virtue ethics provide collective meaning and help to orient everyday life for different people in distinctive ways. Through the lives of young Karen Buddhists in southeastern Myanmar, I show that there are complex and non-linear understandings of virtue that people draw upon in their deliberations about how to pursue possible eudaimonic futures.
Challenging influential perspectives that downplay the role of shared rebel constituencies, we argue that they represent important causes of rebel alliances. Yet, we theorize distinct effects for different types of constituency. While compatible political aspirations push both organizations with a common ideological constituency and those with a common ethnic constituency to ally, for co-ethnic organizations this cooperation-inducing effect is offset by a cooperation-suppressing effect due to their higher risk of inter-rebel war. Leveraging a novel dataset of alliances in multiparty civil wars (1946-2015), we find support for our theoretical expectations. Shared ideological constituencies have a larger and more robust positive effect on the probability of alliances than shared ethnic constituencies. Furthermore, we find that co-ethnic rebel organizations tend to establish informal alliances only, while organizations sharing an ideological constituency are drawn to formal alliances.
This paper explores the relationship between the illicit opium economy and processes of agrarian change in south‐western Shan State, Myanmar. This is a region where opium production has risen significantly since the 1990s despite the declining territorial control of insurgent groups long blamed for the country's illegal drug economy and alongside the deepening integration of the region's agriculture sector into national and global markets. This paper reveals how illicit opium cultivation has offered distressed smallholders a way to mitigate the worsening livelihood insecurities that have accompanied the commercialization of smallholder agriculture. Yet at the same time, opium cultivation has locked farmers into a set of highly unequal social relations that has enabled militias, businesspeople with ties to local (armed) authorities, moneylenders, and agricultural brokers to accumulate capital through their control over rural markets and credit systems while leaving poppy cultivators with little more than the means to reproduce their livelihoods. This paper thus shows how opium cultivation has enabled farmers to respond to worsening precarity by sustaining smallholder farming despite the worsening “reproduction squeeze” facing many households, although the opium economy has simultaneously played an instrumental role in reinforcing and deepening agrarian class relations.
This article is based on interviews with U Ashin Wirathu and an analysis of Buddhist nationalist discourses of violence against religious and ethnic minorities in Myanmar. I explore a fundamental issue that continues to plague the Rohingya—the emphasis on the Rohingya as victims of nationalist systemic Buddhist violence. This chapter sets out to bring Rohingya agency to the forefront. Rohingyas are characterized as immutably foreign and Muslim—that is, they are labeled with an identity convenient to state-sangha oppression. Through interviews with relocated Rohingya society members and the mentoring of Dr. Jerryson, this work is dedicated to the rehumanization and devictimization of the Rohingya.
Myanmar has had one of the longest-ruling military regimes in the world. Ruling directly or indirectly for more than five decades, Myanmar’s armed forces have been able to permeate the country’s main political institutions, its economy and society. This article examines the trajectory of civil-military relations over the last seven decades and identifies the push and pull factors behind the military’s intervention. It highlights the fact that Myanmar’s retreat from direct military rule was only initiated after the military managed to set up a tutelary regime in 2011. This regime gave the Tatmadaw a leading position in the government. Although policymaking in the economic, financial and social arenas was transferred to the civilian government, the military remained in control of internal and external security and continued to be completely autonomous in the management of its own affairs. As a veto power, the military was also able to protect its prerogatives from a position of strength. Despite this dominant position in the government, civil-military relations were a marriage of inconvenience and led to the coup in February 2021. The article identifies the personal and corporate interests of the military as push factors behind the coup. At the same time, it argues, the military felt humiliated and threatened as civilian politicians destroyed the guardrails it had put in place to protect its core interests within the tutelary regime.
This chapter discusses historical and contemporary insurgency and opium cultivation in Myanmar, I first analyse the factors that lend to the durability of a given insurgency in Myanmar over time: geography, resources, and people. I apply the analysis of this interplay of drugs and insurgency across decades in Myanmar, before turning to Chin state, Tonzang township in particular, to examine how that area fits into the triage of crime and insurgency described previously. I then describe opium-growing areas of Tonzang I worked in from 2018 to 2020, and how they differ from the stereotypes we often hold about such places. This is followed by the conclusion, which considers opium as a proxy indicator for the coerced integration of non-market-reliant peoples into markets, from resource security to cash insecurity, and the limits that the historical and contemporary illicit political economy imposes on the potential for social transformation in the post-junta era.
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