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The stalled transformation of food processing in Myanmar
Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Published: 2023-01-23
Total Pages: 33
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →We assess the status and effects of the twin crises (COVID-19 and the military coup) on different segments (production, trade, and consumption) of Myanmar’s food processing sector. Since 2020, we note overall a stalled transformation in food processing in the country: 1. Production (post-farm): The food-processing sector – and especially rice milling – is shown to be very important, making up more than 80 percent of the revenue and value addition of the local industrial sector. The sector suffered substantially from the twin crises, as seen by reduced output and limited new investments in the two most recent years. 2. International trade: Myanmar is in most years a net agricultural exporter (in value terms). However, food exports are dominated by unprocessed and minimally processed products while food imports are mostly more expensive processed foods. While there was fast growth in international food trade between 2009 and 2019, new central bank regulations – focused on an import-substitution strategy to mitigate foreign exchange constraints – have altered trade substantially since. 3. Consumption: The categories of unprocessed and especially of minimally processed food products represent 64 and 23 percent of calories and food expenditures respectively, reflecting the importance of rice in Myanmar’s food economy. After the twin crises, the value of food consumption significantly decreased by 30 and 36 percent for rural and urban areas respectively between 2020 and 2022. However, consumption levels for rural residents are still lower after the crises than those of urban ones. Moreover, while real food consumption expenditures declined significantly for all income groups, the poorest suffered most from the crises as seen in the higher reduction of expenditures for the poorest quintiles (by 31 and 39 percent in rural and urban areas respectively).
Myanmar's Transition
Author: Nick Cheesman
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 394
ISBN-13: 9814414166
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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.
Demystifying Myanmar’s Transition and Political Crisis
Author: Chosein Yamahata
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: 2022-01-11
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 981166675X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book offers the assessment of Myanmar’s societal changes, development aspects, and political situation over the course of the nation’s short lived democratic transition disrupted by the coup d’état on 1 February 2021. A multitude of authors with different expertise add new dimensions of analysis to provide a foundation for any future international cooperation in Myanmar’s center and peripheries. The military’s institutionalization of its influence and control in political, economic and social affairs has negatively affected the safety, security and peace of people and their communities at the periphery. This in turn has led the people to undertake local grassroots initiatives towards securing a genuine democratic transition at the local and national level. The chapters probe into Myanmar’s transition and political crisis through in-depth discussion on the issues such as, but not limited to, state fragility, community resilience, political leadership, ethnic women’s organizations, human security, education equality, IDPs and non-state actors, ethnic community-based health organizations, the 2020 election, peace process, development issues, the coup’s destruction, and a new-born unity. The book covers an important collection of inputs from young and prominent scholars alike, offering a valuable resource for general readers, students, and practitioners. The editors present this volume as a vital collection to literature at a time of heated political crisis and societal responses on her current course since the contributors highlight the state of Myanmar by also focusing on the margins, the grassroots, and the recent coup.
Everyday Justice in Myanmar
Author: Helene Maria Kyed
Publisher: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9788776942816
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This volume explores how ordinary people in present-day Myanmar obtain justice and resolve disputes and crimes in a time of contested transition in government, politics, society, and the economy. Its empirical questions serve as a lens to analyze the wider dynamics of state making, the role of identity politics, and the constitution of authority in a country emerging from decades of military rule and civil war. Based on a unique collection of ethnographic studies with ordinary people's experiences to the fore, its contributions illustrate that legal pluralism exists in urban as well as rural contexts: from the cities of Yangon and Mawlamyine to the Naga hills, the Pa-O self-administered zone, the Thai refugee camps, and villages in the Karen and Mon states. In all of these places, the official state system is only one among many avenues for people seeking resolution in criminal and civil cases. Indeed, a common practice is to evade the state whenever possible. Most people prefer local and informal resolutions, and therefore the main actors consulted in everyday justice are village elders, local administrators, religious leaders, spiritual actors, and the justice systems or individual members of ethnic organizations. Prevailing are also a range of alternative understandings of (in)justice, misfortunes, and disputes that differ from those of the state-legal system. These alternatives are based on different cultural norms, religious beliefs, and forms of identification. Despite the ongoing transition in Myanmar, the long history of military rule and conflicts based on ethnic divisions continue to foster a mistrust in the state and an orientation towards 'the local' in everyday justice. The book explores these forms of state evasion and what it means more broadly for state-society relations in the current transition.
Living with Myanmar
Author: Justine Chambers
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Published: 2020-10-23
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 9814881058
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Since 2011 Myanmar has experienced many changes to its social, political and economic landscape. The formation of a new government in 2016, led by the National League for Democracy, was a crucially important milestone in the country’s transition to a more inclusive form of governance. And yet, for many people everyday struggles remain unchanged, and have often worsened in recent years. Key economic, social and political reforms are stalled, conflict persists and longstanding issues of citizenship and belonging remain. The wide-ranging, myriad and multiple challenges of Living with Myanmar is the subject of this volume. Following the Myanmar Update series tradition, each of the authors offers a different perspective on the sociopolitical and economic mutations occurring in the country and the challenges that still remain. The book is divided into six sections and covers critical issues ranging from gender equality and identity politics, to agrarian reform and the representative role of parliament. Collectively, these voices raise key questions concerning the institutional legacies of military rule and their ongoing role in subverting the country’s reform process. However, they also offer insights into the creative and productive ways that Myanmar’s activists, civil society, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and everyday people attempt to engage with and reform those legacies.
Fake News and Elections in Southeast Asia
Author: James Gomez
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2022-12-30
Total Pages: 182
ISBN-13: 1000820564
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book offers a regional analysis of the impact of fake news – misinformation, malinformation and disinformation – on electoral democracy and freedom of expression in Southeast Asia, which has taken place in the middle of a global health pandemic. The book maps the impact of social media and the internet on democracy in the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that have already been in the throes of democratic regression for some time. Including an analysis of countries that do not have national elections, the chapters provide detailed information on the extent of internet and social media penetration in each country, the laws that are deployed to reel in its political potential for critics and demonstrate the impact on democracy or the prospects for democracy. Collectively, contributors note that disinformation is a serious problem in the region that negatively impacts elections and how governments’ attempts to deal with the phenomenon inevitably lead to the targeting of dissenting voices and opposition as anti-state fake news. The deleterious impact on democracy and freedom of expression, facilitated by a citizenry that is prone to manipulation of facts, appears to be the standard modus operandi in the regional authoritarian complex. This book is the first to undertake a regional analysis of disinformation in Southeast Asia and is a significant contribution to the literature on democracy, elections and disinformation. It will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Political Science and Asian Politics, in particular Southeast Asian Politics.
The Paradox of Myanmar's Regime Change
Author: Roger Lee Huang
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-04-06
Total Pages: 201
ISBN-13: 1000063585
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book analyzes Myanmar’s contemporary political history, arguing that Myanmar’s so-called "democratization" has always been a calculated regime transition, planned by the military, with every intention that the military to remain the key permanent political actor in Myanmar’s political regime. Using the period since Myanmar’s regime change in 2011 as an extended case study, this book offers an original theory of regime transition. The author argues that Myanmar’s ongoing regime transition has not diverged from its authoritarian military roots and explains how the military has long planned its voluntary partial withdrawal from direct politics. Therefore, Myanmar’s "disciplined democracy" contains features of democratic politics, but at its core remains authoritarian. Providing an original contribution to the theoretical literature on regime change by developing a theory of trial and error regime transition, the book engages with and challenges the popular democratization theory by arguing that this theory does not sufficiently explain hybrid regimes or authoritarian durability. Additionally, the book adds to an alternative understanding of how the regime transition was initiated by examining the historical evolution of Myanmar’s post-colonial regime and offers a fresh perspective on contemporary political developments in Myanmar. An important contribution to the study of authoritarian durability and the dynamics of regime change in Southeast Asia, this book will be of interest to academic researchers of comparative politics, international relations, and Southeast Asian studies.
Crafting Parliament in Myanmar's Disciplined Democracy (2011-2021)
Author: Renaud Egreteau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022-03-01
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 0192674676
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In January 2011, parliament was restored in Myanmar after two decades of military rule. Startlingly, it began to repeal obsolete laws, scrutinize government expenditures, summon ministers to the floor, and discuss the state's annual budget. It also allowed its elected representatives to make public the grievances collected from constituents infuriated at enduring practices of land confiscation, petty corruption, and everyday abuses of power. Yet ten years later in February 2021, parliament was shut down, again, by a coup d'état. What has been learned in the span of a decade of post-junta parliamentary resurgence? How could an elected legislature resurface - and function - in a country that had only limited experience with parliamentary affairs and representative politics since its independence from British rule? What lessons can be drawn from the Myanmar case for parliamentary institution-building and legislative developments (and decay) in post-authoritarian and praetorian contexts? This book offers a compelling account of Myanmar's halting efforts to develop the institutional framework and practice of a parliament-based democratic governance between 2011 and 2021. It charts the stages of such a legislative resurgence, tracing its causes, and exploring how various institutional and political legacies both informed and constrained the re-establishment and operations of the Union legislature, or Pyidaungsu Hluttaw. Embracing both ethnographic observations and a methodical engagement with legislative proceedings and historical material, Renaud Egreteau investigates how parliamentary life (re)emerged in Myanmar in the 2010s. His analysis concentrates on key legislative mechanisms, processes, and tasks pertaining to government oversight, budgetary control, representation, and lawmaking and interrogates how they were learned, (re)appropriated, and (mis)performed by Myanmar's new breed of legislators and parliamentary staff until the 2021 army takeover.
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: 304
ISBN-13: 1324003308
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →How did one of the world’s "buzzy hotspots" (Fodor’s 2013) become one of the top ten places to avoid (Fodor’s 2018)? Precariously positioned between China and India, Burma’s population has suffered dictatorship, natural disaster, and the dark legacies of colonial rule. But when decades of military dictatorship finally ended and internationally beloved Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi emerged from long years of house arrest, hopes soared. World leaders such as Barack Obama ushered in waves of international support. Progress seemed inevitable. As historian, former diplomat, and presidential advisor, Thant Myint-U saw the cracks forming. In this insider’s diagnosis of a country at a breaking point, he dissects how a singularly predatory economic system, fast-rising inequality, disintegrating state institutions, the impact of new social media, the rise of China next door, climate change, and deep-seated feelings around race, religion, and national identity all came together to challenge the incipient democracy. Interracial violence soared and a horrific exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fixed international attention. Myint-U explains how and why this happened, and details an unsettling prognosis for the future. Burma is today a fragile stage for nearly all the world’s problems. Are democracy and an economy that genuinely serves all its people possible in Burma? In clear and urgent prose, Myint-U explores this question—a concern not just for the Burmese but for the rest of the world—warning of the possible collapse of this nation of 55 million while suggesting a fresh agenda for change.
