UPCOMING INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: Change and Resistance - Future Directions of Southeast Asia [Taipei, 5-7 December 2019]

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SEASIA Biennial Conference 2019

Change and Resistance: Future Directions of Southeast Asia

5-7 December 2019, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

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Panel 8.4: Social Movements and Political Participation in Southeast Asia

Friday, 6 December 2019, 10:50-12:20, Room 904 (9th Floor)

Chair: Chia-Chien Chang (National Chengchi University)

Panelists:

  • Social Movement and Political Participation: Fortification of Identity in Malaysia's Bersih Movement by Lim Hui Ying (Doshisha University)

  • The “People Power” People Power Monument of the Philippines by Gil D. Turingan (University of the Philippines Diliman)

  • Liberal Democracy and Civil Society: The Co-Production of Education Services by John Mark Hernandez Villanueva (Mapua University Manila)

  • The Hybrid Public Sphere in Myanmar and Implications for Civil Society  by Carl Middleton (Chulalongkorn University)

  • Activist Lawyering in an Emerging Democracy: the Case of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation by Timothy Sinclair Mann (University of Melbourne)

  • Articulating a Broken Polity Social Movement and Political Party's Role in Organizing Cleavages by Zahra Amalia Syarifah (The University of Chicago)

For more information about the conference, please visit this link here.

Abstract for The Hybrid Public Sphere in Myanmar and Implications for Civil Society

by Carl Middleton*, Tay Zar Myo Win

Myanmar was under a military junta government for almost six decades, during which time the state heavily controlled the population’s access to information through maintaining an ‘authoritarian public sphere,’ including via severe control over civil society and independent mass media. In 2010, Myanmar held elections that, although highly flawed, resulted in a semi-civilian government. Whilst the military maintained considerable influence, a degree of electoral competition and civil, political and media freedoms were introduced, all within the constraints of the 2008 constitution. This melding of liberal and illiberal elements within an electoral system is best understood as a hybrid regime (Diamond, 2002). In this paper, we analyze the emergence of a ‘hybrid public sphere’ in Myanmar since 2010 that maintains some elements of the previous authoritarian control of the production and circulation of critical discourse, combined with more liberal elements that reflect recently gained civil, political and media freedoms and a greater role for civil society, journalists, and interaction via social media. The paper develops its analysis first through an assessment of the political transition at the national level, and then in a case study in subnational politics in Dawei City with a focus on local planning of electricity supply. We argue that for Myanmar to shift from a procedural to substantive form of democracy, independent civil society require strategies that link (and deepen) recently gained formal freedoms to ensuring the accountability of state and powerful non-state actors via the creation and maintenance of a substantive public sphere.

*Center of Excellence on Resource Politics for Social Development, Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University (Carl.Chulalongkorn@gmail.com)