Managing grievances in the age of post-politics: The relocation of communities for the Thilawa Special Economic Zone in Myanmar

Abstract

In the last five years, Myanmar’s transition away from military governance has garnered much attention from analysts and scholars. Yet this attention has often focussed on the question of how far the country has moved from constrained authoritarianism to a new era of open democracy based on international norms. Far less consideration has been given to the ways that a new era of ‘international standards’, and of participation and democracy, might have its own new mechanisms for constraint, co-option, or defusing of citizen voices. Rapid political and economic liberalisation has meant that there has been a stark shift in the culture of governance—particularly around the implementation of new d..