Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar

Adam Simpson, Nicholas Farrelly, Ian Holliday, Adam Simpson, Nicholas Farrelly, Ian Holliday

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138820777
• eBook ISBN: 9781317589839
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

After decades of mismanagement and direct military rule, Myanmar's contested transition to a more democratic government has rapidly shifted the outlook in this significant Southeast Asian nation. Since 2011, the removal of Western sanctions and new foreign investments have resulted in high rates of economic growth and an expanding middle class, albeit from a very low base. In a result unthinkable a few years earlier, former political prisoner and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), formed a national government in early 2016. However, despite significant political and economic reforms since the liberalisation process commenced, the transition to civilian rule remains constrained by the military's 2008 Constitution, which guarantees that it operates unfettered by civilian oversight. As a result, although some ethnic conflicts have abated, others continue to fester and new conflicts have erupted. With a daunting task ahead the NLD government has made some progress in removing the vestiges of repressive military-era laws but many remain untouched and some of the practices of the new government provide unwelcome reminders of its authoritarian history.

This timely Handbook describes the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of this crucial period of transition in Myanmar. It presents explanations for contradictory trends, including those that defy some of the early narratives about the comprehensive transformation of Myanmar. The Handbook also considers the impact of major environmental, strategic, and demographic trends which help underscore that Myanmar's development will be an ongoing task. In addition to introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, the body of the Handbook is divided into seven core sections:

• Fundamentals

• Spaces

• Cultures

• Living

• Governance

• International

• Challenges

Written by an international team of scholars, with a mix of world-leading established academics and talented emerging researchers, the Handbook provides a rigorous scholarly overview of Myanmar's politics, economics, and society. As Myanmar opens to Western businesses and government agencies, this is an invaluable reference book that will provide a foundation for further research and offer the first port of call for scholars, students, and policy makers working on Myanmar and Asia.

PART I

Fundamentals

2
THE STATE

Maitrii Aung-Thwin

The transfer of power from the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to the National League for Democracy (NLD) in April 2016 marked a significant step forward in the recent history of the Myanmar state (naingntaw). For only the second time under the 2008 constitution, control of the state successfully changed hands through the mandate of the ballot box. Many international observers regarded the ascension of Aung San Suu Kyi to the highest echelons of government via the national elections of 2015 as the all-important sign that genuine democracy in Myanmar had arrived. Although the crucial institutional changes actually occurred five years earlier with the arrival of the Thein Sein administration and his celebrated reforms, Aung San Suu Kyi’s ardent supporters at home and abroad privileged the outcome of the elections—rather than the institutional process—as the criterion for political transformation. Some commentators reserved judgement until they could determine if the Tatmadaw (military) would step aside and assess whether the NLD could manage the transition from activism to governing. In the four months between the November 2015 elections and the handover in April 2016, stakeholders negotiated behind closed doors to manage what was clearly uncharted territory (Clapp 2015).

The success of the transition cannot be overstated considering that the conditions were ripe for a confrontation with the military over Aung San Suu Kyi’s eligibility to take office. Determining who would lead the country was up for speculation as it was unclear whether the NLD would challenge the constitutional clause that prohibited her from taking office as president. To their credit, all of the relevant stakeholders were able to avoid dragging the new government through a constitutional crisis. In the end, the procedures managing the appointment of new members to the executive and legislative branches of government held fast and provided the mechanism to see the results of the 2015 election materialise. In effect, the 2008 constitution, despite its acknowledged imperfections and contested beginnings, successfully provided the necessary framework for the peaceful transfer of power in a country beleaguered by nearly seventy years of civil war. Within this context, the current rapprochement between the civilian NLD and the military would seem to be all the more remarkable given the history of the contest for the Myanmar state (Taylor 2009).

The state—defined here as the network of mechanisms through which social and political order is maintained—has been the object of contestation in modern Myanmar history (Mitchell 1991; Taylor 2009). In Myanmar, these mechanisms might refer to those institutions, agencies, officials, governing relationships, or bureaucratic practices that have been associated with or employed on behalf of those wielding power and authority. While the enforcement of laws and interaction with government officials might be the more obvious form through which the state asserts its presence, other everyday forms of the state and its networks of order might be considered as well. The collection of taxes, the establishment of postal codes, the initiation of public health campaigns, the standardisation of education, and the designation of official holidays are some quotidian examples in contemporary Myanmar of how communities might encounter the state, its agents, and its claims of authority.

The uneven presence and capacity of the state throughout Myanmar’s history highlights the myriad ways that communities have encountered the state in daily life, influencing in turn how the state has been envisioned (Lieberman 2003; Sadan 2013). In pre-colonial times, state authority was encountered via court appointees, the sangha, or more often, through local elites bearing particular symbols of status bestowed upon them by the Burmese throne. Standards of measurement, attachment, behaviour, writing, language, architecture, and modes of belief reflected ‘state’ norms that spread from centres into society through personal, commercial, and religious patronage networks (Aung-Thwin 1985). Cycles of administrative, territorial, cultural, and economic integration over time and space affected the degree to which local peoples encountered the state and its corresponding representatives while oscillation between periods of political consolidation and fragmentation created different forms of authority, patronage, and legitimacy that were connected with the state (Lieberman 2003).

In colonial and post-colonial Myanmar, these varying axes of the state were shaped by the official and quotidian experiences of the colonial economy, the disruptions of World War II, Cold War tensions, and Myanmar’s broader relationship with members of the international community since 1948 (Taylor 2009). Colonial institutions and personnel reflected the administrative contours and priorities of British Burma—ministries were established to prioritise the effective operations of a colonial economy while local elites (often minorities), Deputy District Commissioners, seconded headmen, and British Indian troops represented the ‘face’ of the colonial state (Saha 2013). After the Japanese Imperial Army and the Burmese Independence Army brought about the collapse of the colonial state in 1941, various domestic political factions competed for the state, reflecting deep-seated divisions that permeated Myanmar society during and after World War II (Aung-Thwin and Maitrii 2013).

Social fissures informed by class, language, religion, education, ethnicity, locale, history, and ideology produced different political visions amongst competitors for the state. Myanmar social structure, as in much of Southeast Asia, was (and continues to be) organised predominantly along patron–client ties in the absence of strong institutions, creating a political landscape featuring competing networks of association linked by personal loyalty, reciprocity, and obligation to an individual. Competition for control of the state in post-independence Myanmar was often fought amongst elites and their constitutents, who were often connected by education, wealth, genealogy, and access to external resources, travel, and support. The post-World War II civil war that continued for over sixty years was exacerbated by a social structure based on vertical patronage ties, clientalism, and the lack of civic institutions that might have promoted political affiliation beyond the ethnic, religious, or personal networks that continue to divide Myanmar society today (Hicken 2011).

This chapter examines the development of the state in Myanmar since 1948. It suggests that the current republican vision of the state, led by a mixture of civilian and military personnel and organised through liberal-democratic institutions, is part of an older effort to resolve deeply entrenched socio-economic challenges and political debates over how the nation should be defined. Earlier attempts to adopt particular political orientations and pursue different economic goals are considered here as context for Myanmar’s recent liberalisation in 2011. Rather than treating the current civilian–military composition of the government as the exception in Myanmar history, this chapter suggests that: (1) this form of institutional partnership has been a signature feature of the state since 1948; (2) each new government recalibrated institutions to either concentrate or disperse state power; and (3) the state has oscillated between connecting the country’s economy to the global market and developing its domestic economic infrastructure through more independent means. As discussed below, an ongoing civil war, a destroyed infrastructure, and fractious socio-political divisions amongst political elites have constrained these efforts since 1948.

The independence state, 1948–1962

The new Union of Burma was established in 1948 as a constitutional government, based primarily on the institutional foundations of the colonial administration and a constitution that was written and ratified by a constituent assembly a year earlier. While the colonial state promoted a more laissez-faire economic orientation, the new independent government began to dismantle the colonial economy and reduce foreign influence while continuing to maintain connections to the global market (He and Brown 2012). The replacement of British personnel by local elites was an important change in 1948, though much of the colonial administrative architecture was retained. Key posts were occupied by both Burmese Defence Army and Western-educated local politicians who had served within the former colonial administration. Thus, the current model of a hybrid government, with civilian and military personnel forming the core of the government’s staff, has been an important feature of the state since independence.

Nationalisation of key sectors was slated to include the banking, utility, non-agricultural lands, and large-scale manufacturing industries, suggesting a more centralised government operation than what was articulated by the 1947 constitution (Taylor 2009). This mixed economy reflected the liberal-socialist orientation of the country’s governing party, the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), who were concerned with uplifting their country’s economic conditions domestically while remaining connected to the international market economy (He and Brown 2012).

This period in Myanmar’s history can be understood differently through the prisms of Rangoon’s international and domestic profiles. On the one hand Rangoon was regarded as a cosmopolitan city, full of economic potential and connected to global rhythms of post-World War II Asia. Institutions were designed to complement the power of the state and uplift civil society, a particularly progressive idea in post-colonial Southeast Asia. Rangoon’s emergence as a global city, a culturally vibrant society, and a growing economy created a reputation that extended—perhaps too generously—to the rest of the country.

However, the view towards the interior revealed a starkly different picture. Rangoon’s relationship to its hinterland was, quite literally, an uphill battle. The architecture of the state did not extend beyond the city limits and certainly not into the highlands, giving the centre little leverage to establish a single governmental system. This situation was particularly acute in regard to ethnically designated territories, whose affiliation to Rangoon and the central government varied considerably. The post-war purge of communists from the AFPFL and the departure of the Karen National Union from the AFPFL-led constitutional process left the central government struggling to maintain the political union it had only recently secured. Within a year, a communist rebellion and a Karen rebellion erupted, threatening the state with disintegration (He and Brown 2012).

The uncertain political situation was also complicated by a broader contest to gain control of the state internally between different political interests. Key stakeholders including the Burma Defence Army, communists, socialists, former civil services administrators, and a range of political organisations began to compete for control of the state in the name of nationalism (Taylor 2009). State managers, many of them former civil servants, attempted to re-establish the basic structures of governance and bureaucratic procedures that had been in place before World War II. Laws, infrastructure, and state financial operations were reconstituted in an attempt to address the often competing requirements of the new state and the priorities of local stakeholders. Predictably, the expansion of the state, its institutions, and its claims of broad authority lacked relevance and capacity in the countryside while the insurrections prevented the state from collecting revenue (He and Brown 2012).

Many of the political differences that crippled the state were over how to identify and resolve fissures within the new government. With the expulsion of the communists from the AFPFL, many of the unifying principles and key individuals that had bound the party began to dissolve. While broadly liberal-socialist in orientation, differences within the party over policies concerning minorities, religion, and the economy divided politicians and their respective client networks along personal and ideological lines. Ethnic communities in the borderland hills were also distrustful of the new state and threatened to reassert their political autonomy from the central government, reigniting the centuries-old tension between centre and periphery. Splits occurred over whether the state should adopt a stronger socialist orientation in an effort to create a workers’ state or whether, given the influence of Cold War concerns, the economy should be more market-oriented and open to foreign capital. The AFPFL would soon divide over the orientation of the state and its ideological priorities. Severely damaged infrastructure, financial deficits, unemployment, capacity shortage, and an armed countryside worsened the situation (Taylor 2009).

The Caretaker Government, 1958–1960

With the eruption of several armed separatist movements, an ongoing communist uprising, and deepening fractures within the AFPFL government, the barely functioning government looked to its military roots to save the Union, resulting in prime minister U Nu inviting the army to temporarily establish Emergency Law and erect a ‘Caretaker Government’ in 1958 (Taylor 2009). In October 1958, military leadership was installed in the cabinet under General Ne Win who was not encumbered by party politics. Wielding actual power and installing non-military officers in the cabinet answerable only to him, Ne Win was able to tackle corruption, end worker strikes, and launch a pacification campaign to quell a violent and armed countryside.

After conducting the functions of state for eighteen months, the army held national elections and returned power to a civilian government in 1960. The two-year interregnum and handing over of power set a precedent for similar action in the years to come and reinforced the military’s belief that its role was to protect and preserve the nation. International partners, especially those in the West, had few concerns about the military’s intervention as Cold War priorities and containing communist China were the priorities of the day. By 1962, with the state at the verge of collapse due to communist and separatist insurgencies, the military overthrew the civilian government of Prime Minister U Nu and established a military Revolutionary Council that would introduce a new system of civilian–military governance to replace the last vestiges of the independence state.

The socialist state, 1962–1988

At the time of the coup, the state had little institutional or ideological leverage; it lacked unifying principles and strong institutions while the political elite were hopelessly divided (Taylor 2009). Most foreign observers at the time regarded the coup as a positive step towards reviving the focused and disciplined governance that Ne Win had introduced in 1958–1960 (Taylor 2009). The adoption of socialist principles and a single-party system was as much a reaction to the constant infighting amongst political parties under the old regime as it was a rejection of a more market-oriented economy. At the same time, the army made it clear that the continued unity of the nation, an objective still echoed today, was the primary rationalisation for seizing power from Nu’s civilian-led government.

Socialism had of course been important to anti-colonial thinkers and its ideological appeal was still strong amongst the nation’s new leadership for it explained the post-colonial predicament and also provided guidelines for modernisation. The post-independence government had a strong pro-West orientation to it and Rangoon had developed into a cosmopolitan city that was quite different from the rest of the country. Still psychologically raw from colonial occupation and concerned about exposing Myanmar to the instabilities of the market economy, the new leadership decided to align itself with a socialist cosmopolitanism and a neutralist foreign policy as a way of insulating itself from what it viewed as the harmful effects of foreign influence (Aung-Thwin 1989).

Under the Revolutionary Council, a new treatise called ‘The Burmese Way to Socialism’ was announced as part of a wider campaign to rationalise and explain the state’s broader objectives. Drawing ideas from anti-colonial nationalists and former members of the communist movement, the main principles attempted to address anxieties concerning community, economy, and modernity, fundamental issues that had nearly brought down the state at the end of the 1950s. It promoted a coherent Myanmar identity, domestic industrial growth, and a common political trajectory for the new nation. Populist policies were directed to enhance the lives of agriculturalists, local artisans, and labourers in order to reach out to a large segment of the rural population that the previous government had not prioritised effectively (Aung-Thwin and Maitrii 2013).

The Revolutionary Council, made up of military officers, launched its own civilian political party called the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) in 1975, following a constitutional convention, a national referendum, and a general election that was held one year earlier. These steps, in hindsight, would provide a blueprint for the military government nearly thirty years later when similar steps would be authorised under the ‘Roadmap to Disciplined Democracy’. The BSPP was created, in part, to mobilise support from the civil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• List of acronyms
• Notes on language
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Fundamentals
• Part II Spaces
• Part III Cultures
• Part IV Living
• Part V Governance
• Part VI International
• Part VII Challenges
• Conclusion
• Index