Download or read book Developments in Burma written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on International Relations. Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Hidden History of Burma Race Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century written by Thant Myint-U and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2019 A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2020 “An urgent book.” —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times During a century of colonialism, Burma was plundered for its natural resources and remade as a racial hierarchy. Over decades of dictatorship, it suffered civil war, repression, and deep poverty. Today, Burma faces a mountain of challenges: crony capitalism, exploding inequality, rising ethnonationalism, extreme racial violence, climate change, multibillion dollar criminal networks, and the power of China next door. Thant Myint-U shows how the country’s past shapes its recent and almost unbelievable attempt to create a new democracy in the heart of Asia, and helps to answer the big questions: Can this multicultural country of 55 million succeed? And what does Burma’s story really tell us about the most critical issues of our time?
Download or read book Civil Society in Burma written by Ashley South and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2008 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burma faces a complex of interlinked humanitarian, social, and political crises. The situation is especially grave in areas populated by ethnic minorities, many of which have been affected by decades of armed conflict, and in the Irrawaddy Delta, where in May 2008 some 130,000 people were killed and over two million made homeless by Cyclone Nargis. The military government is deeply unpopular, and further episodes of mass protest similar to those that occurred in August and September 2007 cannot be ruled out. However, strategic options for elite-level regime change in the country remain limited. Therefore, local and international actors should focus on incremental approaches to democratization, and in particular on the roles of local communities and NGOs. The past decade has seen an expansion of previously dormant civil society networks, especially within and between ethnic nationality communities. This development has been particularly significant in areas affected by ceasefires between armed ethnic groups and the military government. The capacities and strategic importance of local NGOs were demonstrated by the impressive civil society responses to the cyclone. At the local level, models of community participation and the promotion of democracy from below can help to transform state-society relations and patterns of governance, including in ceasefire areas. At the national/elite level, the development of civil society is a prerequisite for sustainable democratic change. Although the promotion of civil society is necessary, it is not sufficient to achieve social and political transition in Burma. Furthermore, community networks are vulnerable to suppression by the militarized state and by armed nonstate actors. Such tendencies were demonstrated during the national referendum of May 2008, when the government engineered the endorsement of a new constitution designed to consolidate and perpetuate military rule. The challenge for the international community is to work within the constricted environment of military-ruled Burma in ways that promote positive change - but without exposing local partners to unacceptable risks.
Download or read book Myanmar s Transition written by Nick Cheesman and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2012 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the world watching closely, Myanmar began a process of political, administrative and institutional transition from 30 January 2011. After convening the parliament, elected in November 2010, the former military regime transferred power to a new government headed by former Prime Minister (and retired general), U Thein Sein. With parliamentary processes restored in Myanmar's new capital of Naypyitaw, Thein Sein's government announced a wide-ranging reform agenda, and began releasing political prisoners and easing press censorship. Pivotal meetings between Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi led to amendment of the Election Law and the National League for Democracy contesting by-elections in April 2012. The 2011 Myanmar/Burma update conference considered the openings offered by these political changes and media reforms and the potential opportunities for international assistance. Obstacles covered include impediments to the rule of law, the continuation of human rights abuses, the impunity of the Army, and the failure to end ethnic insurgency.
Download or read book Metamorphosis written by Renaud Egreteau and published by NUS Press. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a young population of more than 52 million, an ambitious roadmap for political reform, and on the cusp of rapid economic development, since 2010 the world’s attention has been drawn to Myanmar or Burma. But underlying recent political transitions are other wrenching social changes and shocks, a set of transformations less clearly mapped out. Relations between ethnic and religious groups, in the context of Burma’s political model of a state composed of ethnic groups, are a particularly important “unsolved equation”. The editors use the notion of metamorphosis to look at Myanmar today and tomorrow—a term that accommodates linear change, stubborn persistence and the possibility of dramatic transformation. Divided into four sections, on politics, identity and ethnic relations, social change in fields like education and medicine, and the evolutions of religious institutions, the volume takes a broad view, combining an anthropological approach with views from political scientists and historians. This volume is an essential guide to the political and social challenges ahead for Myanmar.
Download or read book Myanmar written by Monique Skidmore and published by ANU E Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite deteriorating economic and developmental conditions, worsening environmental problems, and troubles arising from the unresolved status of its ethnic minorities, Myanmar seems no closer to a political resolution. Myanmar's economy continues to stagnate, with severe implications for its people. Low levels of international assistance have exacerbated the situation. Myanmar the state, community and the environment examines the missed opportunities by government and opposition groups to find a way out of the political impasse and improve the standard of living of the people of Myanmar. This collection provides insights into the country's economic development, in particular the vital rice-marketing sector and the attempts to expand existing industrial zones. It focuses, for the first time, on Myanmar's environmental governance with in-depth case studies, and on the increasing need for effective environmental protection and sustainability..
Download or read book The Burma Delta written by Michael Adas and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades following its annexation to the Indian Empire in 1852, Lower Burma (the Irrawaddy-Sittang delta region) was transformed from an underdeveloped and sparsely populated backwater of the Konbaung Empire into the world’s largest exporter of rice. This seminal and far-reaching work focuses on two major aspects of that transformation: the growth of the agrarian sector of the rice industry of Lower Burma and the history of the plural society that evolved largely in response to rapid economic expansion.
Download or read book The Rebel of Rangoon written by Delphine Schrank and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2015 An epic, multigenerational story of courage and sacrifice set in a tropical dictatorship, The Rebel of Rangoon captures a gripping moment of possibility in Burma (Myanmar) Once the shining promise of Southeast Asia, Burma in May 2009 ranks among the world's most repressive and impoverished nations. Its ruling military junta seems to be at the height of its powers. But despite decades of constant brutality-and with their leader, the Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, languishing under house arrest-a shadowy fellowship of oddballs and misfits, young dreamers and wizened elders, bonded by the urge to say no to the system, refuses to relent. In the byways of Rangoon and through the pathways of Internet cafes, Nway, a maverick daredevil; Nigel, his ally and sometime rival; and Grandpa, the movement's senior strategist who has just emerged from nineteen years in prison, prepare to fight a battle fifty years in the making. When Burma was still sealed to foreign journalists, Delphine Schrank spent four years underground reporting among dissidents as they struggled to free their country. From prison cells and safe houses, The Rebel of Rangoon follows the inner life of Nway and his comrades to describe that journey, revealing in the process how a movement of dissidents came into being, how it almost died, and how it pushed its government to crack apart and begin an irreversible process of political reform. The result is a profoundly human exploration of daring and defiance and the power and meaning of freedom.
Download or read book Domestic Constraints on South Korean Foreign Policy written by Scott A. Snyder and published by Council on Foreign Relations. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays support the argument that strong and effective presidential leadership is the most important prerequisite for South Korea to sustain and project its influence abroad. That leadership should be attentive to the need for public consensus and should operate within established legislative mechanisms that ensure public accountability. The underlying structures sustaining South Korea’s foreign policy formation are generally sound; the bigger challenge is to manage domestic politics in ways that promote public confidence about the direction and accountability of presidential leadership in foreign policy.
Download or read book Caretaking Democratization written by Renaud Egreteau and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Myanmar under Aung San Suu Kyi may seem destined for a smooth transition towards an enduring democracy, behind the scenes the military remains very much in control. Egreteau's shrewd analysis is a stark reminder of where the balance of power resides.
Download or read book The Military in Burma Myanmar written by David I Steinberg and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myanmar military has dominated that complex country for most of the period since independence in 1948. The fourth coup of 1 February 2021 was the latest by the military to control those aspects of society it deemed essential to its own interests, and its perception of state interests. The military’s institutional power was variously maintained by rule by decree, through political parties it founded and controlled, and through constitutional provisions it wrote that could not be amended without its approval. This fourth coup seems a product of personal demands for power between Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, and the especially humiliating defeat of the military-backed party at the hands of the National League for Democracy in the November 2020 elections. The violent and bloody suppression of widespread demonstrations continues, compromise seems unlikely, and the previous diarchic governance will not return. Myanmar’s political and economic future is endangered and suppression will only result in future outbreaks of political frustration.
Download or read book Myanmar Burma written by Lex Rieffel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burma had the brightest prospects of any Southeast Asian nation after World War II. In the years since, however, it has dropped to the bottom of the world's socioeconomic ladder. The grossly misruled nation—officially known as Myanmar—is in the midst of a political transition based on a new constitution and its first multiparty elections in twenty years. That transition, together with a recent change in U.S. policy, prompted this book. Two military dictators have ruled Myanmar with an iron fist for nearly fifty years. A popular uprising in 1988 was brutally suppressed, but it forced the generals to hold an election in 1990. When an anti-regime party led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won by a landside, however, the generals rejected the results, put Suu Kyi under house arrest for most of two decades, and continued to exploit the country's abundant resources for their own benefit while depriving citizens of basic services. Years of Western sanctions had no measurable impact, but in 2009 the Obama administration adopted a new policy of "pragmatic engagement," encouraging greater respect of democratic principles and human rights as a basis for eventual removal of sanctions. This thoughtful volume examines Burma today primarily through the eyes of its ASEAN partners, its superpower neighbors China and India, and its own people. It provides insights into the overarching problem of national reconciliation, the strategic competition between China and India, the role of ASEAN, and the underperforming, resource-cursed economy. Contributors include Pavin Chachavalpongpun (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore), Termsak Chalermpalanupap (ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta), David Dapice (Tufts University), Xiaolin Guo (Institute for Security & Development Policy, Stockholm), Gurmeet Kanwal (Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi), Kyaw Yin Hlaing (City University of Hong Kong), Li Chenyang (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies a
Download or read book Economic Development of Myanmar written by Myat Thein and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2004 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are a number of excellent studies by eminent Myanmar economists as well as scholars from abroad covering different post-war periods and/or various aspects of development in Myanmar. What this book does is to bring them altogether, as it were, under one roof by recasting bits and pieces of their work according to the author’s own understanding. In doing so, a holistic approach was adopted in order to have a well-rounded account of developments over the past fifty years or more. In addition, an attempt has also been made to present the major developments at different periods of time between 1948 and 2000 in a simple, but not over simplified, reader-friendly format so as to reach as wide an audience as possible. It is the author’s ardent wish that not only students and policy-makers, but Myanmar people in all walks of life will read the book, discuss it, and work together for a better future.
Download or read book Ethnic Politics in Burma written by Ashley South and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the conflict and civil war that has ravaged Burma, and considers the implications that conflict has had for Burma’s development and prospects for democratization.
Download or read book Interpreting Myanmar written by Andrew Selth and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the abortive 1988 pro-democracy uprising, Myanmar (formerly Burma) has attracted increased attention from a wide range of observers. Yet, despite all the statements, publications and documentary films made about the country over the past 32 years, it is still little known and poorly understood. It remains the subject of many myths, mysteries and misconceptions. Between 2008 and 2019, Andrew Selth clarified and explained contemporary developments in Myanmar on the Lowy Institute’s internationally acclaimed blog, The Interpreter. This collection of his 97 articles provides a fascinating and informative record of that critical period, and helps to explain many issues that remain relevant today.
Download or read book Making Enemies written by Mary Patricia Callahan and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Burmese army took political power in Burma in 1962 and has ruled the country ever since. The persistence of this government--even in the face of long-term nonviolent opposition led by activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991--has puzzled scholars. In a book relevant to current debates about democratization, Mary P. Callahan seeks to explain the extraordinary durability of the Burmese military regime. In her view, the origins of army rule are to be found in the relationship between war and state formation.Burma's colonial past had seen a large imbalance between the military and civil sectors. That imbalance was accentuated soon after formal independence by one of the earliest and most persistent covert Cold War conflicts, involving CIA-funded Kuomintang incursions across the Burmese border into the People's Republic of China. Because this raised concerns in Rangoon about the possibility of a showdown with Communist China, the Burmese Army received even more autonomy and funding to protect the integrity of the new nation-state.The military transformed itself during the late 1940s and the 1950s from a group of anticolonial guerrilla bands into the professional force that seized power in 1962. The army edged out all other state and social institutions in the competition for national power. Making Enemies draws upon Callahan's interviews with former military officers and her archival work in Burmese libraries and halls of power. Callahan's unparalleled access allows her to correct existing explanations of Burmese authoritarianism and to supply new information about the coups of 1958 and 1962.
Download or read book The Politics of Aid to Burma written by Anne Decobert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over sixty years, conflict between state forces and armed ethnic groups was ongoing in parts of the borderlands of Burma. Ethnic minority communities were subjected to systematic and widespread abuses by an increasingly complex patchwork of armed state and non-state actors. Populations in more remote and disputed border areas typically had little to no access to even basic healthcare and education services. As part of its counter-insurgency campaign, the military state also historically restricted international humanitarian access to civilian populations in unstable border areas. It was in this context that "cross-border aid" to Burma had developed, as an alternative mechanism for channelling assistance to populations denied aid through more conventional systems. Yet by the late 2000s, national and international changes had significant impacts on an aid debate, which had important political and ethical implications. Through an ethnographic study of a cross-border aid organisation working on the Thailand-Burma border, this book focuses on the political and ethical dilemmas of "humanitarian government". It explores the ways in which aid systems come to be defined as legitimate or illegitimate, humanitarian or "un-humanitarian", in an international context that has witnessed the multiplication of often-conflicting humanitarian systems and models. It examines how an "embodied history" of violence can shape the worldviews and actions of local humanitarian actors, as well as institutions created to mitigate human suffering. It goes on to look at the complex and often-invisible webs of local organisations, international NGOs, donors, armed groups and other actors, which can develop in a cross-border and extra-legal context ¿ a context where competing constructions of systems as legitimate or illegitimate are highlighted. Exploring the history of humanitarianism from the local aid perspective of Burma, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian Studies, Anthropology of Humanitarian Aid and Development Studies.
