Search results

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky can count the past week as a successful one. He travelled through a range of European countries gathering new military and political commitments, while in Russia the drama sparked by the ...

While the conflict in Ukraine is mostly concentrated in the east along the country's border with Russia, the borders of NATO members to Ukraine's north and west are increasingly being tested. Mercenaries from Russia's Wagner ...

As Ukraine's 'shaping' activities continue across Russian-occupied Ukraine—and parts of Russian territory—ahead of its much-anticipated counteroffensive, the global political environment is gradually, but significantly, shifting in Ukraine's favour. In the week leading up to this ...

Last week, the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met on the island of Flores, Indonesia, for the annual ASEAN summit and related meetings. Once again, the post-coup conflict in Myanmar was ...

Based on extensive fieldwork in the region this groundbreaking book explores the important role that environmental movements from these countries are playing in promoting effective energy and environmental governance. By comparing the nature of this activism under two very different political regimes, Adam Simpson provides crucial theoretical insights for sustainable resource development in the South.

Although general elections in Myanmar (Burma) in November 2010 have transformed the political landscape, many of the characters remain the same. While there is evidence of incremental domestic political openings many of the political constraints that existed during military rule remain in force. As a consequence of decades of military authoritarian governance and civil conflict, it is Myanmar's contested ethnic borderlands that have been the important locales for the development of environmental movements, despite increased recent domestic activity. This article analyses a case study of the largely cross-border campaign against hydropower dams on the Salween River in Myanmar and finds that through the suppression of opposition and dissent at home the regime has stimulated the creation of an 'activist diaspora', a dynamic transnational community of expatriates who engage in environmental activism beyond the reach of the regime. Due to their relative freedom on the border and in Thailand this community has developed expertise and international networks that have proved crucial in communicating the social and environmental impacts of hydropower development in Myanmar to the international community. Through increased cooperation with an expanding domestic civil society this established activist community is stimulating improved environmental governance of hydropower development and simultaneously assisting in the creation of a more open and democratic Myanmar. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

This new edition of Myanmar: Politics, Economy and Society provides a sophisticated yet accessible overview of the key political, economic and social challenges facing contemporary Myanmar and explains the complex historical and ethnic dynamics that have shaped the country.

Thoroughly revised, the book analyses the context and tragic consequences of the military coup in February 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic. With clear and incisive contributions from the world's leading Myanmar scholars, this book assesses the policies and political reforms that have provoked contestation in Myanmar's recent history and driven both economic and social change. In this context, questions of economic ownership and control and the distribution of natural resources are shown to be deeply informed by long-standing fractures among ethnic and civil-military relations. The chapters analyse the key issues that constrain or expedite societal development in Myanmar and place recent events of national and international significance in the context of its complex history and social relations. The book provides detailed analysis of the coup, which overturned a decade of political and economic reforms and threw the country into chaos. It explains the drivers for the coup, how it has impacted on the country and the future prospects for accountability and justice.

Filling a gap in the market, this research textbook and primer will be of interest to upper undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars of Southeast Asian politics, economics and society and to journalists and professionals working within governments, companies and other organisations.