Cultural Recognition and Effective Democratic Transition

文化认可和有效的民主转型

• 批准号: 1728882
• 负责人: Mike McGovern
• 金额: $ 18.19万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-01 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1728882&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cultural; Recognition; Effective; Democratic; Transition

Governance is frequently defined by a delicate balance between citizens' desires to be provided services by a central government and their demands for autonomy, to be left alone by that same government. Functioning democracies depend on the effective management of this balance. This proves even more challenging in multiethnic nation-states, where cultural, ethnic, or religious difference can come to play central roles in the state's willingness or unwillingness to provide protection and assistance. Such difference can also become the basis for cultural minorities claiming the right to self-determination. In multiethnic democracies, there often results a tension between demands for recognition, the right to be counted, to vote, to be treated as an equal; and demands to exit the polity, to take on the risks and potential rewards that accompany independence. This project investigates whether strategies that invoke cultural rather than territorial claims are effective for obtaining state services and recognition in the context of democratic transition. Project findings will also be presented to organizations involved in development pathways for effective governance, conflict resolution standards, and sustainable transition to democracy.Dr. Michael McGovern of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor will explore the strategic deployment of culture as a peaceful means of making claims on the central governing apparatus. The research takes place in a context undergoing democratic transition, among the Danu people in southern Shan State, Myanmar, which is selected as a site for investigating this question because it contrasts with claims-making practices of most other ethnic minority groups in Myanmar, defined by territorial claims and a history of armed resistance to the state. Research will take place in three adjacent townships in Shan State, located 1. in a semi-autonomous self-administered zone (SAZ) of the Danu, a hybrid Shan-Burmese population, 2. in an SAZ governed by the Pa-O National Organization, a former separatist group that fought the ethnic Burman-dominated central government (as well as the locally dominant Shan) until 1994, and 3. in an ethnic Shan township that is not part of an SAZ, but that sits between the two SAZs. Village-based participant observation, semi-structured interviews with local elites and representatives of the central state, and life histories with both villagers and local elites will allow the researcher to investigate the ways in which instrumental use of culture and alternation between armed resistance and cultural struggle do or do not lead to different forms of everyday governance, cultural practice, and political sentiment among ordinary civilian villagers and the local elites who speak on their behalf. The research will contribute to understanding the ways both states and minority groups utilize cultural claims, and to understanding the relations among culture-making, territorial claims and violence.

治理通常是由公民希望获得中央政府提供服务的愿望与他们对自治的要求以及不受同一政府干涉的要求之间的微妙平衡来定义的。民主国家的运作取决于对这种平衡的有效管理。事实证明，这在多民族国家中更具挑战性，因为文化、民族或宗教差异可能在国家是否愿意或不愿意提供保护和援助方面发挥核心作用。这种差异也可以成为文化少数群体主张自决权的基础。在多民族民主国家，在承认权利、被统计权、投票权、平等对待权等要求之间常常会出现紧张关系；并要求退出政体，承担独立带来的风险和潜在回报。该项目调查在民主转型背景下，援引文化而非领土主张的策略是否能有效获得国家服务和认可。项目研究结果还将提交给参与有效治理、冲突解决标准和可持续民主转型发展途径的组织。密歇根大学安娜堡分校的迈克尔·麦戈文将探索文化的战略部署，作为向中央管理机构提出要求的和平手段。这项研究是在缅甸掸邦南部的达努人正在进行民主转型的背景下进行的，之所以选择这里作为调查这个问题的地点，是因为它与缅甸大多数其他少数民族群体的主张做法形成鲜明对比，这些做法以领土主张和武装抵抗国家的历史为定义。研究将在掸邦的三个相邻乡镇进行，分别位于 1. 达努族的一个半自治自治区 (SAZ)，这里是掸邦与缅甸的混血人口；2. 位于巴欧民族组织 (Pa-O National Organization) 管辖的一个 SAZ，该组织是一个前分离主义组织，一直与缅族占主导地位的中央政府 (以及当地占主导地位的掸族政府) 作战，直至 1994 年；3. 掸族乡镇 它不是 SAZ 的一部分，但位于两个 SAZ 之间。以村庄为基础的参与观察、对地方精英和中央国家代表的半结构化访谈以及对村民和地方精英的生活史将使研究人员能够调查文化的工具性使用以及武装抵抗和文化斗争之间的交替是否会导致普通平民村民和代表他们发言的地方精英之间不同形式的日常治理、文化实践和政治情绪。该研究将有助于了解国家和少数群体利用文化主张的方式，并了解文化创造、领土主张和暴力之间的关系。