“Hybrid Governance” and the Politics of Legitimacy in the Myanmar Peace Process

ABSTRACT

This article examines competing claims to political legitimacy and sovereignty in Myanmar’s conflict-affected areas of “limited statehood.” In the context of ceasefires and an emerging peace process since 2012, non-state-controlled “liberated zones” and areas of mixed insurgent and government authority constitute new political spaces, where multiple state and para-state actors demonstrate governance authority, extract resources and provide services to local communities. This article explores the dynamics and implications of these developments with reference to the emerging literatures on “rebel rulers” and “hybrid governance,” and examines the practices of donors and aid agencies operating in these areas. I argue that external actors seeking to “think and work politically” should move beyond standard peace-building and development packages based on strengthening the state, and adopt more conflict and context-sensitive approaches. Effective state building should take account of governance structures and service delivery functions established by ethnic armed organisations, which although under-resourced enjoy significant political legitimacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Myanmar
• Busan Principles
• governance
• limited statehood
• peace-building
• legitimacy

Acknowledgements

Thanks for valuable insights to the anonymous reviewers; to Mi Kun Chan Non, Marie Lall, Alan Smith, Tim Schroeder, Miles Jury, Kim Jolliffe and Norman Ware; and to P’doh Tah Do Moo and P’doh Eh Nah from the KNU.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of industry was reported by the author.

Notes

1. From late 2011 through 2012, the government agreed to, or reconfirmed, ceasefires with 10 of the 11 most important EAOs. However, in June 2011 the Myanmar Army launched a major offensive against the Kachin Independence Organisation in northern Myanmar, breaking a 17-year ceasefire and displacing more than 100,000 civilians. This article focuses mostly on the situation in southeast Myanmar, where ceasefires have held.

2. Ethnic political leaders in Myanmar have generally preferred to identify their communities as “ethnic nationalities” rather than “ethnic minorities.” Designation as an ethnic nationality is believed to grant greater political status, invoking the idea of nationhood, rather than a marginalised minority. The official term is “national races” (taingyintha). How ethnicity is understood, and claims made by or for various groups, are inherently political issues, depending on the relative power of different actors. Concepts of ethnicity in Myanmar are derived from colonial-era classifications and often unhelpfully reinforce crude essentialisations of identity. While the fixing of ethnic identity may be convenient for administrative and political elites, this often does not reflect lived realities, subject to re-imaginations over time and/or in different contexts. Cheeseman (2017a, 476) argues that “without confronting the ‘national races’ problem, Myanmar citizenship will remain in crisis.”

3. Ramsbotham and Wennmann (2014, 6) define legitimacy “as the popular acceptance of political authority.” Clements (2014, 13) defines legitimacy as “the formal and informal social and political contracts that govern relationships between the state and citizens.” For surveys of the literatures on political legitimacy in Myanmar, and in Asia more broadly, see Alagappa (1995) and Steinberg (2007).

4. With civilian “above-ground” ethnic political parties performing poorly in the 2015 elections, EAOs could continue to claim a special leadership position vis-à-vis ethnic nationality communities.

5. Several of these EAOs appear to match definitions of rebel governance as “organising civilians for a public purpose. Three scope conditions are territorial control, a resident population, and violence or threats of violence” (Arjona, Mampilly, and Kasfir 2015, 21).

6. Callaghan (2007) and Smith (2007) have both applied Duffield’s framework analysis to conflict-affected areas of Myanmar.

7. Péclard and Mechoulan (2015, 5) review the literature on “rebel governance” and observe that “civil wars do not simply destroy political orders. They contribute to shaping in producing them. Civil wars, in other words, are part and parcel of the process of state formation.”

8. Such forms of “pluricentric” governance are often quite resilient. Wood and Shearing (2007) use network analysis to explore interrelationships in the field of security and policing, showing how some actors exercise more power and authority than others because they can mobilise various forms of capital (symbolic, cultural, political, social, and economic).

9. The analysis here builds on South and Joll (2016), which provides a comparative overview of peace processes in Myanmar and the southern Philippines. This overview does not address anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar. For more on this topic see Cheesman (2017b) and Van Klinken and Su Mon Thazin Aung (2017).

10. The MPSI was launched in March 2012 following a request from the government of Myanmar to the government of Norway to lead international support for the peace process. Between 2012 and 2015, the MPSI facilitated projects implemented by conflict-affected communities, civil society actors and EAOs, which aimed to build trust and confidence in – and test – the ceasefires and emerging peace process (see MPSI 2014). The author was a senior adviser to the MPSI.

11. For an overview of the transition in Myanmar, see Lall (2016); see also South (2018).

12. At the Union level, in December 2016 the KNU health department was invited to meet with the government’s Department of Health and other stakeholders in Naypyidaw, to help develop the National Health Plan. This degree of collaboration would have been impossible before the KNU ceasefire, and the NCA.