Is regime change enough for Burma?: The problem of state capacity

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 622-644

  Englehart, Neil A ^a  

^a BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION; POLITICAL REFORM; SANCTION;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; MYANMAR; SOUTHEAST ASIA; WORLD;

EID: 27644483204     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.4.622     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Although the goverment has changed the official name of the country from Burma to Myanmar, much of the discussion in this article refers to the period when it was known as Burma. To avoid confusion, I employ the name Burma consistently here.
2. See U.S. Congress, Public Law 108-61 (July 28, 2003), paragraph 3 (a) (3) (B) .
3. Michael Aung-Thwin, "The British 'Pacification' of Burma: Order without Meaning," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 16 (September 1985), pp. 245-61;
4. Mary P. Callahan, Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), chap. 1. As a part of British India, Burma was governed by the Indian Civil Service (ICS). At the higher levels, the ICS was staffed almost exclusively by Europeans and met the classic Weberian definition of a legal-rational bureaucracy: it was meritocratic in its recruitment and advancement, employees lived on their salaries, and business was conducted according to regular written rules and procedures. However, employees at the lower levels of the system, including assistants, clerks, messengers, and so on, were often poorly selected and corrupt.
5. James F. Guyot, "Bureaucratic Transformation in Burma," in Ralph Braibanti, ed., Asian Bureaucratic Systems Emergent from the British Imperial Tradition (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1966), p. 366.
6. For a first-hand account by a native colonial official (in Burmese), see "Ludu" U Hla, Kyunnaw Burokarat [I am a bureaucrat] (Mandalay: Gyibwayepain Press, 1970).
7. The BIA nominally aligned with the Japanese. Its core was the "Thirty Comrades," who traveled to Japan before the war to seek military training and aid in the struggle for independence from the British. They returned to Burma with the Japanese army but later turned against the Japanese. The Thirty Comrades included Aung San, the great hero of the independence movement, and Ne Win, who ruled Burma as a dictator from 1958-60 and 1962-88.
8. Callahan, Making Enemies, chap. 2.
9. Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 92.
10. Guyot, "Bureaucratic Transformation," p. 388.
11. Robert H. Taylor, The State in Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1987), p. 255.
12. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, "The Politics of State-Business Relations in Post-Colonial Burma," Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University (2001), p. 71.
13. John F. Cady, A History of Modern Burma (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958), p. 602.
14. Mary P. Callahan, "The Origins of Military Rule in Burma," Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University (1996), p. 129.
15. Callahan, Making Enemies, p. 107.
16. Hugh Tinker, in The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Years of Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 17, characterizes the PVO as "in fact a private army" under Aung San's direction.
17. Callahan, "The Origins of Military Rule," pp. 303-08.
18. The descendants of some of these insurgencies remain in the field today, although the once formidable Communist Party of Burma collapsed in 1989. On the complex history of the insurgencies, see Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (New York: Zed Books, 1999);
19. and Bertil Lintner, Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948 (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999).
20. Andrew Selth, Burma's Armed Forces: Power without Glory (Norwalk, Conn.: Eastbridge Books, 2002), p. 156, claims that the sitwundan were incorporated into regular army units in 1953, but some were folded into a later program named pyusawhti, after an ancient Burmese hero. Independent units flourished until 1962.
21. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, "The Politics of State-Business Relations," p. 73.
22. Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 33.
23. Ibid., chap. 7.
24. Guillermo O'Donnell, "On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Post-Communist Countries," World Development 21:8 (August 1993), p. 1359.
25. Ibid., pp. 1358-59.
26. A useful illustration of Burmese provincial politics in this period is the memoir of District Officer Balwant Singh, Independence and Democracy in Burma, 1945-1952: The Turbulent Years (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1993).
27. See Callahan, Making Enemies, chap. 6.
28. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power Vol II: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760-1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 59-61.
29. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, "The Politics of State-Business Relations."
30. Aristide Zolberg, "Moments of Madness," Politics and Society 2:2 (Winter 1971), pp. 183-209.
31. See Bertil Lintner, Outrage: Burma's Struggle for Democracy (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1990), pp. 121-22.
32. Ibid., pp. 74-75.
33. For contrasting views of these events, see ibid.
34. and also Maung Maung, The 1988 Uprising in Burma (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Center, 1999).
35. Compare Maung Maung Gyi, Burmese Political Values: The Socio-Political Roots of Authoritarianism (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1983), p. 194,
36. and Kyaw Yin Hlaing, "The Politics of State-Business Relations," p. 180.
37. Meaning that they lived off fees paid for services, rather than a salary. Such systems limit the control superiors have over the hierarchy of officials below them and are notorious for breeding corruption.
38. Civil servants formerly received a ration of food and other supplies at a reduced price, a practice that was recently discontinued in lieu of a salary supplement. The fixed-price goods were, of course, resistant to inflation, while the salary supplements will not be unless they are continually increased. On civil service wages and corruption, see Aung San Sun Kyi, Letters from Burma (New York: Penguin, 1996), pp. 171-77;
39. David Steinberg, Burma: The State of Myanmar (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), pp. 53,132-38,157;
40. Burma Issues, "In Rangoon: Civil Servants and Cemeteries," Burma Issues (Bangkok) 9:2 (February 1999), p. 3.
41. World Bank, "Myanmar: Policies for Sustaining Economic Reform," Washington, D.C., October 16,1995, . The more telling statistic would be tax collections as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP), but the lack of good estimates of GDP for Myamnar (in part because of the very large black market and the government's inability to collect economic data) makes this calculation impossible.
42. International Labor Office Governing Body, "Developments Concerning the Question of the Observance by the Government of Myanmar of the Forced Labor Convention, 1930 (No. 29)," G.B. 282/4, Geneva, November 2001, p. 16.
43. Mary P. Callahan, "Cracks in the Edifice," in Burma/Myanmar: Strong State, Weak Regime, eds. Morten B. Pedersen, Emily Rudland, and Ronald J. May (Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia: Crawford House, 2000), pp. 31-32.
44. See also Moe Gyo, "Fatal Attraction," The Irrawaddy Online Edition, March 2000, .
45. Human Rights Watch, "My Gun Was as Tall as Me": Child Soldiers in Burma (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002), pp. 38, 51-52, 62-63, and 73-76. In some cases, soldiers reportedly serve as unpaid factory labor as well.
46. Saw Kwekloh, "Kyuakkyi Township: Mountains and Plains Apart," Burma Issues 9:9 (September 1999), p. 3.
47. Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, "Paddy Farmers and the State: Agricultural Policies and Legitimacy in Rural Myanmar," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2001), p. 165.
48. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, "The Politics of State-Business Relations," pp. 252-53.
49. Thawnghmung, "Paddy Farmers and the State," pp. 263-64.
50. Ibid., p. 319.
51. A more democratic government, if it were to come to power, would certainly receive foreign assistance. However, under current conditions the country's capacity to absorb aid usefully would be limited, and it is a virtual certainty that massive corruption in its disbursement would result.
52. See Leon T. Hadar, "U.S. Sanctions against Burma: A Failure on All Fronts," Cato Institute Trade Policy Analysis, no. 1, March 26, 1998, ;
53. "An Interview with David Steinberg," The Irrawaddy Online Edition, May 2003, ;
54. and most recently, Morten Pedersen and Robert H. Taylor, An Independent Report for the European Commission: Supporting Burma/Myanmar's National Reconciliation Process: Challenges and Opportunities, Brussels, January 2005, at . Burmese and foreign observers unanimously expressed skepticism about the effects of the tightened sanctions to the author when he was in Yangon in December 2003 and January 2005
55. For a rare argument that there should be more capacity-building programs, see International Crisis Group, "Myanmar: Sanctions, Engagement, or Another Way Forward?" Bangkok/Brussels, Asia Report, no. 78, April 26, 2004, .
56. There have been some relatively low-profile private initiatives as well. For instance, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, a Japanese non-governmental organization, has sponsored a series of workshops on enhancing civil service capacity. See "Workshop on Capacity Enhancement of Myanmar Civil Service Continues," in the official online newspaper The New Light of Myanmar, November 22, 2002, .
57. See the Burma country brief at . The Australian government has also sponsored leadership and community management training for refugees living in Thailand.
58. Trevor Wilson, "Australia's Human Rights Initiative, 2002-2003: A Brief Case Study," presentation to EU "Burma Day," Brussels, April 5, 2005, .
59. On criticisms of the program, see "Burma/Australia: Doubts Raised over Policy," The Irrawaddy Online Edition, October 10, 2002, ;
60. and Bob Burton, "Australia Dances with the Burmese Military,"Asia Times online, May 2,2003, .
61. Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe, "Changing Regime: Rangoon, after Baghdad?" April 23, 2003, .