Cultural Recognition and Effective Democratic Transition

治理经常被定义为在公民希望由中央政府提供服务和要求自治（不受同一个政府干涉）之间保持微妙的平衡。发挥作用的民主国家取决于对这种平衡的有效管理。事实证明，这在多民族国家更具挑战性，在这些国家，文化、种族或宗教差异可能会在国家是否愿意提供保护和援助方面发挥核心作用。这种差异也可能成为文化少数群体要求自决权的基础。在多民族民主国家中，经常会出现两种要求之间的紧张关系：一是要求承认，二是要求被计算、投票和被平等对待的权利；要求退出这个政体，承担独立带来的风险和潜在回报。该项目调查了在民主转型的背景下，援引文化而不是领土要求的战略是否能有效地获得国家服务和承认。项目研究结果还将提交给参与有效治理、冲突解决标准和向民主可持续过渡的发展途径的组织。密歇根大学安娜堡分校的迈克尔·麦戈文（Michael McGovern）将探讨文化作为向中央统治机构提出要求的和平手段的战略部署。本研究是在缅甸掸邦南部的达努人（Danu）民主转型的背景下进行的，该地区被选为调查这一问题的地点，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，这些少数民族的主张是由领土主张和武装抵抗国家的历史决定的。研究将在掸邦三个相邻的乡镇进行，分别位于1。在达努族半自治的自治地区（SAZ），掸族和缅甸族的混血儿，2。帕奥民族组织（Pa-O National Organization）是一个前分裂组织，在1994年之前一直与缅族主导的中央政府（以及当地占主导地位的掸族）作战。在一个不属于特别行政区，但位于两个特别行政区之间的掸族小镇。以村庄为基础的参与性观察，对当地精英和中央政府代表的半结构化访谈，以及与村民和当地精英的生活史，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不同形式的日常治理，文化实践，以及普通平民村民和代表他们发言的当地精英的政治情绪。该研究将有助于理解国家和少数民族利用文化主张的方式，并有助于理解文化创造、领土主张和暴力之间的关系。

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.