Economies of conflict in Myanmar's 2011-21 political trajectory

这项研究试图理解国际社会与冲突经济体的接触如何导致缅甸长达十年的自由过渡过程中的暴力转变，这一转变被一场残酷的政变打断。冲突经济--根植于该国在过渡之前的威权控制和冲突动态的历史上的结构性寻租遗产--在整个过渡时期无处不在。这项研究将着眼于国际社会与这些冲突经济体的接触--这直接使军事权力结构能够与自由的建设和平治理模式同时运行--如何推动不断加深的结构性暴力，这种暴力逐渐成为缅甸政治轨迹的特征。2011年，在经历了50年的军政府统治后，缅甸走上了一条意想不到的改革道路，开始摆脱长达数十年的封闭独裁政权。在缅甸开放的最初几年，国际社会表现出了高度的乐观情绪：军方显然愿意放弃对国家的控制权，昂山素季上台，这位此前被禁止参加选举的全国民主联盟领导人受到广泛支持，吸引了发展援助和外国投资的大幅增加，缅甸成为后政权过渡的地点，以市场为导向的民主治理改革为基础。在进行这一全面过渡的同时，最近刚刚承认其控制的军方，通过控制关键的政治杠杆，以及至关重要的是，通过管理国家的大部分经济资源，继续掌握着权力平衡，而军方从这些资源中赚取了大量租金。这些寻租安排与全国各地军队和少数民族武装团体之间正在进行的内战错综复杂地纠缠在一起，直接促进了军事控制的权力结构在过渡期间并行运作。这反过来又使军方能够策划一场不断加深的结构性暴力，随着时间的推移，这种暴力使该国陷入不确定之中，尽管得到广泛支持的自由主义建设和平改革进程正在同步推进。本研究采用定性、因果和解释性的个案研究方法，使用半结构化访谈和文献数据，考察国际社会与这些寻租遗产的互动如何通过一系列关键改革影响转型的轨迹。为这项研究收集主要数据的海外实地工作将在泰国北部分两个阶段进行，那里有大量缅甸政治参与者、研究人员、活动家和少数民族武装组织的侨民和政治社区。

This study seeks to understand how the international community's engagement with economies of conflict contributed to the violent turn in Myanmar's ten-year liberal transition, interrupted by brutal a coup d'état. Economies of conflict - structural rent-seeking legacies rooted in the country's history of authoritarian control and conflict dynamics which preceded the transition - were pervasive throughout the transition period. The study will look at how the international community's engagement with these economies of conflict, which directly enabled military power structures to run alongside the liberal peacebuilding model of governance, contributed to the deepening structural violence that grew to characterise Myanmar's political trajectory.In 2011, following five decades of military governments, Myanmar was launched on an unexpected path to reform, commencing a move away from a decades-long, closed, authoritarian regime. High levels of optimism from the international community greeted the initial years of the country's opening up: the apparent willingness of the military to cede control of the country and the rise to power of Aung San Suu Kyi, the widely supported leader of the National League for Democracy previously banned from participating in elections, drew significantly increased flows of development assistance and foreign investment and Myanmar became the site of a post-regime transition anchored in market-oriented and democratic governance reforms. At the same time as this sweeping transition proceeded, the military, which had so recently conceded its stranglehold, continued to hold the balance of power, through its control of key political levers and crucially, through its management of large portions of the country's economic resources from which it drew substantial rents. These rent-seeking arrangements were intricately entangled with the ongoing civil war between the military and ethnic armed groups around the country and directly facilitated military-controlled power structures to run in parallel to the transition. This in turn enabled the military to orchestrate a deepening structural violence which over time, gripped the country in uncertainty, even as the widely endorsed liberal peacebuilding reform process progressed in tandem. Employing a qualitative, causal and explanatory case-study approach, this study uses semi-structured interviews and documentary data, to examine how through a set of key reforms, the international community's interaction with these rent-seeking legacies influenced the trajectory of the transition. Overseas fieldwork to collect primary data for the study will be conducted over two phases in northern Thailand, where there is a significant diaspora and political community of Myanmar political actors, researchers, activists and ethnic armed organisations.