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Freedom of religion has long been restricted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, both by formal regulation and by common practice. While non-Buddhist faiths have always had some space to practice their faith, government restrictions placed on religious minorities, particularly during the fifty-year period of military dictatorship, limited that practice and created deep grievances and mistrust, fueling several ethnic insurgencies. Religious minority communities and actors, on the whole, are more vulnerable to intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and social bias. The country's 2008 constitution, which led the way for the military's "discipline-flourishing" transition to democracy that reached its nominal conclusion in 2011, includes protections for religious freedom, even as it affirms Buddhism's "special place." However, some old restrictions remain in practice, while new laws have been passed that challenge religious freedom anew. Meanwhile, the judiciary and other rule of law institutions fail to protect religious minorities and sometimes enable discrimination, a legacy of their historical abuse by previous military regimes. Freedom of religion has long been restricted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, both by formal regulation and by common practice. While non-Buddhist faiths have always had some space to practice their faith, government restrictions placed on religious minorities, particularly during the fifty-year period of military dictatorship, limited that practice and created deep grievances and mistrust, fueling several ethnic insurgencies. Religious minority communities and actors, on the whole, are more vulnerable to intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and social bias. The country's 2008 constitution, which led the way for the military's "discipline-flourishing" transition to democracy that reached its nominal conclusion in 2011, includes protections for religious freedom, even as it affirms Buddhism's "special place." However, some old restrictions remain in practice, while new laws have been passed that challenge ...

Academic research on dams' social impacts traditionally focuses on ex‐post resettlement impacts. We explore a specific subset of ex‐ante resettlement impacts in this paper: 'Damocles projects', whose implementation is still uncertain. Our case study is Thailand's Kaeng Suea Ten Dam whose implementation has been uncertain for 36 years. We find the cultural life of the communities studied has been significantly shaped by the looming construction of the dam. Furthermore, most villagers report extreme anxiety induced by the threat of the project. As a consequence, many have postponed private investments. The government has also withheld public infrastructure investments, further hampering the villages' economic development. Our research highlights the negative impacts induced by projects whose implementation is still uncertain.

Scholars overwhelmingly adopt the case study method when analyzing causal conditions inducing anti-dam-protests. We have carried out the first medium-N-study on this topic analyzing public opposition to 12 dam projects in Asia. For this purpose, we employ a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) which is based on a thorough review of scholarly writings and press reports on the dam projects at question as well as an online survey and semi-structured interviews. We identify two causal recipes sufficient for the emergence of significant anti-dam-protests. First, lacking social safeguards in combination with the presence of political opportunity structures and higher levels of development are sufficient for significant anti-dam-protests to emerge. Second, lacking social safeguards in combination with rampant corruption and environmental risk induce these protests. Current scholarly literature particuarly emphasizes political opportunity structures and development as causal conditions inducing significant protests. Our findings build on this literature to highlight the importance of project-specific conditions.

Chinese dam developers claim to construct at least every second dam worldwide. However, scholarly literature comprehensively investigating the social safeguard norms in these projects is rare. This paper analyses social safeguard norms in Chinese-led dam projects in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, hotspots of Chinese-led dam construction. We find that social safeguard norms adopted have significantly changed in the past 15 years. While Chinese dam developers claimed to adopt standards of the host countries upon the launch of China's Going Out Policy in 2001, with occasional adoption of more demanding Chinese standards, they did not adopt international norms. In recent years, however, they increasingly take into account international norms. We argue that the root cause for this change is social mobilization, with the suspension of the Myitsone Dam in 2011 as a particular game changer. Enhanced social safeguard legislation in host countries and China, stricter rules of Chinese funders and cooperation of Chinese dam developers with international players have also facilitated this change.

First published: 15 July 2021 ; Background Engagement frameworks provide the conceptual structure for consumer engagement in healthcare decision making, but the level to which these frameworks support culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumer engagement is not known. Objective This study aimed to investigate how consumer engagement is conceptualised and operationalized and to determine the implications of current consumer engagement frameworks for engagement with CALD consumers. Method Altheide's document analysis approach was used to guide a systematic search, selection and analytic process. Australian Government health department websites were searched for eligible publicly available engagement frameworks. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Results Eleven engagement frameworks published between 2007 and 2019 were identified and analysed. Only four frameworks discussed engagement with CALD consumers distinctly. Organisational prerequisites to enhance engagement opportunities and approaches to enable activities of engagement were highlighted to improve CALD consumers' active participation in decision making; however, these largely focused on language, with limited exploration of culturally sensitive services. Conclusion There is limited discussion of what culturally sensitive services look like and what resources are needed to enhance CALD consumer engagement in high-level decision making. Health services and policy makers can enhance opportunities for engagement with CALD consumers by being flexible in their approach, implementing policies for reimbursement for participation and evaluating and adapting the activities of engagement in collaboration with CALD consumers. Patient/Public Contribution This study is part of a wider 'CanEngage' project, which includes a consumer investigator, and is supported by a consumer advisory group. The study was conceived with inputs from the consumer advisory group, which continued to meet regularly with the project team to discuss the methodology and emerging findings. ; Ashfaq Chauhan, Ramesh L. Walpola, Elizabeth Manias, Holly Seale, Merrilyn Walton, Carlene Wilson, Allan B. Smith, Jiadai Li, Reema Harrison