About the Seminar

Myanmar’s Constituency Development Funds (CDF) were introduced in 2014 by the first post-junta Union legislature. Popular in developing countries and emerging democracies alike, CDFs are funding arrangements that channel public money from the government directly to electoral constituencies for small infrastructure and local development projects. Members of parliament commonly hold sway over the way these funds are allocated annually. CDF schemes have long remained controversial among communities of donors, anti-corruption agencies and civil society watchdogs for their potential for corruptive business and political clientelism. Drawing on recent field research, this lecture will investigate initial patterns of “pork barrel” politics in Myanmar under both the late USDP government (2014-16) and early NLD administration (since 2016). How have elected legislators used their annual CDFs? How has “pork” been allocated and distributed? Has the process been monitored and evaluated? What impact have these “pork barreling” programs had on local economic development? Has there been any indication of partisan use of these funds? The long-term objective of this study is to better understand how the politics of distribution and legislative pork barreling are emerging in post-junta Myanmar, and whether the negative impacts observed in other sociopolitical contexts and post-authoritarian societies, such as corruption, vote-buying, and political clientelism, can also impede, or foster, citizen participation and government accountability in the country.

About the Speaker

Renaud Egreteau (PhD Paris, 2006) is Visiting Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. He previously taught comparative politics at Sciences Po Paris, France and the University of Hong Kong, and was a recipient of a 2015-2016 fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. He recently authored Caretaking Democratization: The Military and Political Change in Myanmar (Oxford University Press and Hurst, 2016) and co-edited Metamorphosis: Studies in Social and Political Change in Myanmar [with Francois Robinne] (Singapore: NUS Press, 2015).

Registration

For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 26 April 2017.

About the Seminar

With the opening up of the country’s economy in its development drive, reforms in post-2011 Myanmar have linked urbanization with development.  In his speech inaugurating Myanmar’s Urban Research and Development Institute (URDI) in January 2012, then Union Minister of Construction Khin Maung Myint expressed his hope that the “URDI will assist the Government’s endeavours of building a new, modern and developed nation.” This fixation on modernization and development is not new for Myanmar, but it has taken on increased urgency since 2011. The country’s leaders have pursued economic integration with ASEAN and adopted a number of international standards, including the UN Millennium Development Goals, as near-term targets. In this drive to catch up with Myanmar’s neighbours and to reconnect with the global economy, these leaders see cities as the engines for economic development. But in the rush to make the country competitive there has been no discussion of what the urban is or what constitutes development. Other cities in the global South and postcolonial countries have encountered similar challenges, leading scholars to question the uncritical application of the tenets of development and neoliberal globalization to so-called developing nations. This seminar will focus on the making of the urban in Myanmar as a contingent and contested process that is increasingly subject to international circuits of authoritative knowledge. In particular, it asks, what is a city if it is not the production of space undertaken by its inhabitants? What are the roles and functions of cities in a reforming Myanmar? And what is Myanmar urbanism in a rapidly globalizing country?

 

About the Speaker

Jayde Lin Roberts is a spatial ethnographer and interdisciplinary scholar of the built environment. Her book, Mapping Chinese Rangoon: Place and Nation among the Sino-Burmese, was published by the University of Washington Press in June 2016. She is a tenured faculty member at the University of Tasmania and is currently in Myanmar as a Fulbright Scholar. Her ongoing research in Yangon examines discourses of development as presented by the British colonial government and the governments of independent Burma/Myanmar, as well as the current representation of development, which is strongly influenced by international standards and universalized expertise.

Registration

For registration, please fill in this form and email it to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 23 March 2017.

ABOUT THE FORUM

MYANMAR STUDIES PROGRAMME

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

When the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) came to power in March 2011 and formed the government, one of the first activities was the official public announcement of its various policies, including a statement on Myanmar foreign policy. This seminar will examine continuities and changes in Myanmar foreign policy under the USDP government from a broader historical perspective. It raises the following questions: How do we explain and understand Myanmar foreign policy under the USDP government? Is there a continuality or change in Myanmar foreign policy and if so what are the factors that contribute to it? Who and which institutions are key driving forces behind Myanmar foreign policy at present?

This paper argues that the USDP government has adjusted its foreign policy without undermining the fundamental principles long practiced by successive governments in Myanmar. However, as it sets a foreign policy goal of reintegrating Myanmar within international community, the USDP government has pursued a foreign policy strategy based on multilateralism, with special attention to regional institutions and cooperative security, and reorientation of Myanmar’s foreign relations in the context of strategic competitions among great powers. While the foreign policy adjustment was driven by leadership, with the president as a prime mover, the military plays an influential and indispensable role in shaping and making it a reality and a success.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr Maung Aung Myoe is a Visiting Senior Fellow under the Myanmar Studies Programme at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.  He teaches at the International University of Japan (IUJ). He is also the Director of International Relations Program in the Graduate School of International Relations at IUJ. He earned his PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Australian National University. His research interests are civil-military relations, regional security in Southeast Asia, and the government and politics in Myanmar. He teaches Security and Strategy in International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis and Southeast Asian International Relations.

REGISTRATION

To register, please complete this reply form and return it by fax: 6775-6264 or email: iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 23 October 2015.

ABOUT THE SEMINAR


ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr Kyaw Yin Hlaing is a member of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council to president of
Myanmar; member of the Myanmar Peace Centre Secretariat; director of Myanmar Egress, an NGO
concerned with political change in the country; and former Associate Director of the Southeast Asia
Research Centre at City University of Hong Kong.

Mr Kyaw Zwa Moe is editor of the Irrawaddy magazine (English Edition). After spending eight years in
prison for publishing an underground newspaper critical of military rule, Kyaw Zwa became part of the
exile media based in Thailand, starting 2000. He joined the Irrawaddy, established since 1992 by his
brother Aung Zaw. Kyaw Zwa now heads the Yangon bureau of the Irrawaddy, as part of initial steps to
build up the Irrawaddy's reporting presence in the country.

Dr Ma Thida is one of Myanmar's leading public intellectuals. She is a medical doctor, a writer, a
human rights advocate and former prisoner of conscience who now has an important role in helping
societies and communities in Myanmar play a part in the current reform process. She founded Pen
Myanmar Centre in 2014, with a threefold mission to: conduct a media watch on issues related to
freedom of expression; organise public discussions about literature and develop a culture of literature
in Myanmar; and to make literature a part of the educational curriculum in the country, promoting
creative writing.


REGISTRATION

To register, please complete this reply form and return it by fax: 6775-6264 or email: iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 1 October 2015.


 
 

   

Best wishes,

Dr Hui Yew-Foong
Co-coordinator of Workshop & ISEAS Senior Fellow

 
REGISTRATION

All registrations are on a first-come, first-served basis.

Admission to the workshop can only be taken as confirmed upon receiving written acceptance from the Institute.

To register, please complete and email this Registration Form to iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg, latest by Tuesday, 25 August 2015.