Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This chapter discusses what constitutes civil society in Myanmar over time, and what activities these actors engaged in. It highlights a Gramscian perspective on civil society as a sphere of contestation, potential exploitation and hegemony and brings in the notion of ‘uncivil society’ to describe some of the Buddhist nationalist groups that emerged during the political transition period, as well as the rise in hate speech via Facebook and other channels. The chapter traces the origins of Myanmar civil society to Buddhist nationalist movements and ethnic self-organizations engaged in resistance activities as well as social welfare. It introduces the democracy movement that emerged in the 1990s and ends with a description of the 2015 electoral victory of the National League for Democracy and the escalating violence against the Rohingya that occurred in its wake.
This book centres on various contestations in Myanmar society and illustrates the ways in which these are reflected in civil society.
The book offers a concise overview of recent political developments in the country, from the short-lived attempts at democratisation to the 2021 military coup, and analyses the involvement of various civil society actors, as well as their international supporters. It incorporates multiple identities and fault lines in Myanmar society and explains how these influence diverse perceptions, framing and agenda setting as political developments unfold.
The book provides an up-to-date overview of the main identities and contestations within Myanmar’s civil society and, by extension, within Myanmar society as a whole.
In order to analyse the activities and advocacy positions of various civil society groups, this chapter discusses diversity in identities and positions within Myanmar civil society and the fault lines that can be identified between different groups based on ethnicity and religion, gender and generation, class and education level, and location inside or outside the country. The role of Buddhist monks, student activists and the democracy movement in exile as the most visible actors in Myanmar’s civil society is put into perspective. This chapter also discusses civil society’s various levels of independence from the state, and the role of so-called government-organized NGOs. Lastly, it reflects on the elitist nature of some professionalized civil society organizations and their relationship with grassroots activism, with particular reference to the so-called Third Force that emerged in Myanmar at the start of the political transition.
This chapter analyzes Europe’s role and place in US–China competition with a focus on Huawei’s presence in Europe’s fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. This case reveals three broader features of Europe’s role in US–China competition. First, European countries’ desire to expand their economic links with China while continuing to depend on the US for their defense represents the central challenge they face in this new strategic environment. Second, while US and European views on China have converged in recent years, they are not identical, and European countries are unlikely to take as firm a position toward China as countries in Western Europe did against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Third, while internal divisions will prevent Europe from acting as a third power alongside the US and China in world politics, Europe will still be able to shape its regional environment and influence US–China competition in various ways.
This chapter discusses the influence of the largely Western donor support on civil society’s room to manoeuvre before and during Myanmar’s political transition. Under military rule, foreign assistance was constrained, and aid budgets were relatively low. During the political transition, many donors and inter-governmental organizations entered the country looking for opportunities. Although this resulted in increased support for civil society, international non-governmental organizations remained in a more powerful position than local actors. After the rise in hate speech and violence against Muslim communities, aid again became politicized. Foreign agencies in Rakhine State were accused of prioritizing Muslim recipients, and some were forced to leave the country. After violence against the Rohingya escalated, cases against Myanmar were started at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, in which Aung San Suu Kyi defended the role of the military. This sparked surprise and outrage among Western observers who had viewed her as a human rights icon. The selective international attention for Myanmar, which focused respectively on sanctions, opportunities for foreign involvement and the plight of the Rohingya, arguably resulted in feelings of ‘competitive victimhood’ between different ethnic groups that were all affected by the military.
Over the last two decades, China has emerged as one of the most powerful state actors in the post-Cold War international system. This book provides a multifaceted and spatially oriented analysis of how China’s re-emergence as a global power impacts the dominance of the US as well as domestic state and non-state actors in various world-regions, including the Asia-Pacific, Africa, South America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe, and the Arctic. Chapters reflect on how and under which conditions competition (and cooperation) between the US and China vary across these regions and what such variations mean for the prospects of war and peace, universal human dignity, and global cooperation.
This chapter zooms in on civil society’s responses to Myanmar’s military coup of February 2021 and its renewed search for inter-group solidarity and international attention. It discusses the role of elected politicians and civil society representatives in the newly formed National Unity Government, a shadow body to the military State Administration Council. Since the coup, these two entities have contested for local legitimacy and global recognition. After months of peaceful protest and violent repression, some citizens turned to armed resistance by forming People’s Defence Forces, many of which were trained by ethnic armed organizations in the border region. This led to new questions regarding representation and agenda setting on behalf of the Myanmar population, as well as debates regarding effective and acceptable forms of resistance. Civil servants formed the Civil Disobedience Movement by refusing to work for the government in health care, infrastructure or education, while those who did not participate faced social punishment. The nationwide anti-coup protests had an emancipatory effect on various marginalized groups, with women, youth, ethnic and sexual minorities playing a more prominent and visible role than before. The post-coup resistance movement also displayed public support for the plight of the Rohingya.
Burma/Myanmar has faced prolonged periods of military rule and hosts some of the world’s longest internal conflicts. In the early 2000s, hopes flared up at the local and international level for democratic reform under the military’s ‘Roadmap to Democracy’. These hopes were crushed as the military continued to dominate the political landscape and terrorize the population. It continued its violent treatment of ethnic minorities, resulting in large-scale crimes against the Rohingya in 2017. After handing over power to the National League for Democracy, the military again staged a coup in 2021, which resulted in a large anti-coup movement and escalating military violence against dissidents. This introduction sets the context of the political transition period between 2010 and 2020, outlines the methodology and positionality of the researcher, introduces the concept of civil society as a lens through which these political developments are analysed the various perceptions on social and political change in Myanmar at the local and global level. It introduces the following chapters in which civil society identities and tactics in pursuit of local change and global recognition are analysed. The chapter ends with an explanation of terminology, including the use of Burma or Myanmar.
Over the last two decades, China has emerged as one of the most powerful state actors in the post-Cold War international system. This book provides a multifaceted and spatially oriented analysis of how China’s re-emergence as a global power impacts the dominance of the US as well as domestic state and non-state actors in various world-regions, including the Asia-Pacific, Africa, South America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe, and the Arctic. Chapters reflect on how and under which conditions competition (and cooperation) between the US and China vary across these regions and what such variations mean for the prospects of war and peace, universal human dignity, and global cooperation.
The participation of most Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since 2018 illustrates how China has filled the void left by the US in its traditional sphere of influence. The BRI represents a vague cooperation platform for developing investment, infrastructure projects, and trade between China and its partners with dubious effects in the region but with certain diplomatic gains for China. The review of the literature and the examination of official documents points to two main factors for its achievement in LAC: the flexibility of choosing different degrees of involvement for each government and the mobilization of the connectivity rhetoric in a region affected by structural infrastructure deficits. This chapter suggests that the BRI should be considered a discursive strategy which has had a noticeable impact on the US–China rivalry in the region.
