War and Peace in the Borderlands of Myanmar
War and Peace in the Borderlands of Myanmar

Author: Mandy Sadan

Publisher: Nias Studies in Asian Topics

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788776941888

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In June 2011 fighting resumed between the Kachin Independence Organisation and Myanmar Army, ending a 17-year ceasefire. The unwillingness of local Kachin people and their leaders to agree to a speedy renewal of the ceasefire has frustrated many observers and policy-makers hoping for a national ceasefire agreement between the Myanmar government and principal armed ethnic organizations. Yet since the ceasefire collapsed, surprisingly little attention has been paid to understanding the Kachin experience of the ceasefire. This book brings together local activists with international academics and acclaimed independent researchers to reflect on these experiences from different perspectives. They also raise important and enduring questions about the social, economic and political development of Myanmar s border regions . Crucially, the chapters offer vital lessons about the dangers inherent in ceasefire agreements when an armed peace is implemented but not accompanied by a substantive commitment to political change.--Backcover

Rebel Politics
Rebel Politics

Author: David Brenner

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1501740113

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Rebel Politics analyzes the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar, one of the most entrenched armed conflicts in the world. Since 2011, a national peace process has gone hand-in-hand with escalating ethnic conflict. The Karen National Union (KNU), previously known for its uncompromising stance against the central government of Myanmar, became a leader in the peace process after it signed a ceasefire in 2012. Meanwhile, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) returned to the trenches in 2011 after its own seventeen-year-long ceasefire broke down. To understand these puzzling changes, Brenner conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the KNU and KIO, analyzing the relations between rebel leaders, their rank-and-file, and local communities in the context of wider political and geopolitical transformations. Drawing on Political Sociology, Rebel Politics explains how revolutionary elites capture and lose legitimacy within their own movements and how these internal contestations drive the strategies of rebellion in unforeseen ways. Brenner presents a novel perspective that contributes to our understanding of contemporary politics in Southeast Asia, and to the study of conflict, peace and security, by highlighting the hidden social dynamics and everyday practices of political violence, ethnic conflict, rebel governance and borderland politics.

Conflict in Myanmar
Conflict in Myanmar

Author: Nick Cheesman

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2016-08-01

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 9814695866

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As Myanmar’s military adjusts to life with its former opponents holding elected office, Conflict in Myanmar showcases innovative research by a rising generation of scholars, analysts and practitioners about the past five years of political transformation. Each of its seventeen chapters, from participants in the 2015 Myanmar Update conference held at the Australian National University, builds on theoretically informed, evidence-based research to grapple with significant questions about ongoing violence and political contention. The authors offer a variety of fresh views on the most intractable and controversial aspects of Myanmar’s long-running civil wars, fractious politics and religious tensions. This latest volume in the Myanmar Update Series from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific continues and deepens a tradition of intense, critical engagement with political, economic and social questions that matter to both the inhabitants and neighbours of one of Southeast Asia’s most complicated and fascinating countries.

War and Peace in the Borderlands of Myanmar
War and Peace in the Borderlands of Myanmar

Author: Mandy Sadan

Publisher: Nias Studies in Asian Topics

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788776941895

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In 2011 armed hostilities between the Kachin Independence Organisation and Myanmar Army ended a 17-year ceasefire agreement. The unwillingness of local Kachin people and the Kachin political-military leadership to bow to pressure for a speedy renewal of the ceasefire frustrated many observers and policy makers, who hoped to see a national ceasefire agreement signed between the Myanmar government and the country's principle armed ethnic organisations. Yet since the ceasefire collapsed, surprisingly little attention has been paid to understanding in detail the experience of the previous 17 years of ceasefire in the Kachin region and how this has influenced local political and military attitudes, or the continuing significance of these experiences in relation to the ongoing national peace process in Myanmar. This book brings together local activists with international academics and acclaimed independent researchers to reflect on these experiences from a variety of cultural, political, economic and social perspectives. Collectively, the authors shed critical light upon the reasons why an area that was once considered an important collaborator in the goal of political transition in Myanmar should most recently have seen the return of significant popular support for a resumption of armed conflict. The arguments and insights that the book offers raise important questions about the social, economic and political development of Myanmar's 'border regions' in recent years that will be relevant long into the future, including after a nationwide ceasefire may be signed. Crucially, the chapters provide important lessons about the dangers inherent in ceasefire agreements when an 'armed peace' is implemented that is not accompanied by a substantive commitment to political change.

The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century
The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century

Author: Thant Myint-U

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-11-12

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1324003308

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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?

Asymmetrical Neighbors
Asymmetrical Neighbors

Author: Enze Han

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-08-12

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0190688327

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Is the process of state building a unilateral, national venture, or is it something more collaborative, taking place in the interstices between adjoining countries? To answer this question, Asymmetrical Neighbors takes a comparative look at the state building process along China, Myanmar, and Thailand's common borderland area. It shows that the variations in state building among these neighboring countries are the result of an interactive process that occurs across national boundaries. Departing from existing approaches that look at such processes from the angle of singular, bounded territorial states, the book argues that a more fruitful method is to examine how state and nation building in one country can influence, and be influenced by, the same processes across borders. It argues that the success or failure of one country's state building is a process that extends beyond domestic factors such as war preparation, political institutions, and geographic and demographic variables. Rather, it shows that we should conceptualize state building as an interactive process heavily influenced by a "neighborhood effect." Furthermore, the book moves beyond the academic boundaries that divide arbitrarily China studies and Southeast Asian studies by providing an analysis that ties the state and nation building processes in China with those of Southeast Asia.

The Kachin Conflict
The Kachin Conflict

Author: Carine Jaquet

Publisher: Institut de recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-Est contemporaine

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 2355960151

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Fighting in Kachin state flared back up just months after President Thien Sein came to power in March 2011. The new government almost immediately began negotiating a series of peace agreements with ethnic armed groups declaring that the signature of a nationwide ceasefire with all ethnic armed groups would be a priority for this first civilian administration. By convincing the majority of groups involved in armed struggle against the Tatmadaw to sign ceasefire agreements, the predominantly civilian government succeeded in winning some credibility, both nationally and internationally. At the same time, several old fault lines have re-emerged, among them the conflict in Kachin and Northern Shan States. The roots of the conflict in Kachin State between the KIO and government troops go back to grievances over control of the territory (and its lucrative natural resources) and the preservation of ethnic identity after the end of British colonial rule in 1948. The rekindling of this old conflict, after seventeen years of ceasefire, serves as a powerful reminder of the fragility of certain aspects of the transition process. The setback to conflict and blockage of peace process with the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and its Army (KIA) show that some structural political issues remain, such as the recognition of local power structures and decentralization. While much has been written in the media about the legal, economic, and political reforms in Myanmar; academic research about the Kachin Conflict, as well as firsthand information remains scarce. Analyzing the causes of the conflict and current impediments to peace in Kachin territories provides an illustration of the limits of the transition process. This research examines the personal experiences of a strong sample of influential Kachin people, shows the complexity of notions of war and peace in the collective Kachin memory, as well as the reinterpretation of these by local leadership for political ends.

Bucharest Diary
Bucharest Diary

Author: Alfred H. Moses

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2018-07-17

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 0815732732

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An insider's account of Romania's emergence from communism control In the 1970s American attorney Alfred H. Moses was approached on the streets of Bucharest by young Jews seeking help to emigrate to Israel. This became the author's mission until the communist regime fell in 1989. Before that Moses had met periodically with Romania's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to persuade him to allow increased Jewish emigration. This experience deepened Moses's interest in Romania—an interest that culminated in his serving as U.S. ambassador to the country from 1994 to 1997 during the Clinton administration. The ambassador's time of service in Romania came just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. During this period Romania faced economic paralysis and was still buried in the rubble of communism. Over the next three years Moses helped nurture Romania's nascent democratic institutions, promoted privatization of Romania's economy, and shepherded Romania on the path toward full integration with Western institutions. Through frequent press conferences, speeches, and writings in the Romanian and Western press and in his meetings with Romanian officials at the highest level, he stated in plain language the steps Romania needed to take before it could be accepted in the West as a free and democratic country. Bucharest Diary: An American Ambassador's Journey is filled with firsthand stories, including colorful anecdotes, of the diplomacy, both public and private, that helped Romania recover from four decades of communist rule and, eventually, become a member of both NATO and the European Union. Romania still struggles today with the consequences of its history, but it has reached many of its post-communist goals, which Ambassador Moses championed at a crucial time. This book will be of special interest to readers of history and public affairs—in particular those interested in Jewish life under communist rule in Eastern Europe and how the United States and its Western partners helped rebuild an important country devastated by communism.

Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar
Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar

Author: Matthew J. Walton

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 110715569X

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Walton explains political dynamics in Myanmar through Buddhist thought, providing a conceptual framework for understanding Myanmar's ongoing political transition.

The Politics of Federalization in Myanmar
The Politics of Federalization in Myanmar

Author: Dulyapak Preecharush

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-24

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1000849090

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This book examines the trajectory of federalization in Myanmar's political development, evaluating the attitudes of different political actors toward, and negotiation strategies for, designing federalism. It argues that three factors drive federalization in Myanmar, namely constitutionalization, conflict management, and democratization. The confluence of these forces arrived at a critical juncture in 2011, the start of Myanmar's political transition, leading to significant changes in Myanmar's federation process. By analyzing the changes and continuities in federalism building, the book charts the dynamic pathway toward Myanmar's current federalization, revealing how periods of progress and stagnation reflect varying world views and the individual strategies of prominent political actors. Offering a systematic conceptual framework on federalism in Myanmar, this will be a useful resource for students and scholars of Political Science, Comparative Politics, and Southeast Asian Politics.