Neighborhood effect of borderland state consolidation: evidence from Myanmar and its neighbors

Abstract

This article examines the process of state consolidation, or its failure, in a state’s borderland area with neighboring states in upland Southeast Asia. It proposes that we should conceptualize state consolidation as an interactive process heavily influenced by a “neighborhood effect.” It argues that we should look at how state consolidation in one country’s borderland area can be influenced by the same process in the neighboring states. In particular, the article probes under what conditions the neighborhood effect of state consolidation might take place. It argues that the effect is more profound in situations where there is power asymmetry between neighboring states, and the extent of such effect is further conditioned upon the nature of relations among these states. Empirically, this article uses a set of comparative case studies Myanmar’s modern history of state consolidation in its borderland area to illustrate the proposed theoretical framework. Differentiating between the country’s eastern borders with China and Thailand vs. its western borders with Bangladesh and India, the article empirically examines Myanmar’s state consolidation processes to illustrate the theoretical framework, focusing on variations of power balance and nature of relations between the country and its neighbors since the end of World War II.

Keywords:

• Myanmar
• China
• Thailand
• Southeast Asian Borderland
• State Building

Notes

Acknowledgment

The author thanks two anonymous reviewers at The Pacific Review for their comments. All remaining errors, if any, is his own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The country changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989. In this paper, I use Burma for the period before 1989, and Myanmar thereafter.

2 Here I treat power capabilities quite broadly to include military, economic, geographic, and demographic elements.

3 The caveat here is that the different scenarios discussed here are by no means overly determining. In fact, such interactive dynamics can create different types of responses from neighboring states, which might be correlated with other factors, some domestic and others international.

4 However, Myanmar has not released any census data about the states’ ethnic compositions. Ethnic demographic data from the most recent census, in 2014, have not yet been released. However, it is generally understood that the ethnic-majority Bamar only account for about 68 percent of the whole population. This means ethnic minorities should account for a high percentage of the population in the borderland area, which can also be inferred from the persistence of ethnic rebel groups and inability of Myanmar’s government to impose state-building projects there.

5 The victory of the Chinese communists significantly changed the international security dimension in Southeast Asia, as it boosted the morale of many of the local communist parties and also played a direct role in a series of wars in Indochina in which the U.S. was involved.

6 People’s Daily (renmin ribao), “Dare to Sacrifice, Dare to Fight, and Dare to Succeed (ganyu xisheng ganyu douzheng ganyu shengli),” 21 March 1969.

7 However, we also note that although these ceasefire agreements did not lead to the cessation of militarization of the borderland area, they nonetheless did gradually increase the Myanmar state’s presence in the borderland area. After passing the 2008 Constitution, the Myanmar government made it clear that it wants to incorporate all the existing ethnic armed groups into a singular border guard force. This indicates that the power balance between the central government and the ethnic armed groups have shifted in the favor of the former. However, after the breakdown of the ceasefire agreements, peace negotiations undertaken by Aung San Suu Kyi’s government not made much progress.

8 1 mu = 0.1647 acre.

Additional information

Funding

The author thanks the Leverhulme Trust for a research fellowship that provided funding for initial research of this paper, and the British Council/Newton Fund for a research grant that facilitates the writing process.

Notes on contributors

Enze Han

Dr. Enze Han is Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration. His research interests include ethnic politics in China, China's relations with Southeast Asia, and the politics of state formation in the borderland area between China, Myanmar and Thailand. Dr. Han received a PhD in Political Science from the George Washington University in the United States in 2010. Afterwards he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University. During 2015-2016, he was a Friends Founders' Circle Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. In 2017, he was a fellow at the East Asia Institute in Seoul, South Korea. His research has been supported by the Leverhulme Research Fellowship, and British Council/Newton Fund. Prior to Hong Kong, Dr. Han was Senior Lecturer in the International Security of East Asia at SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom.