5 - Village Networks, Land Law, and Myanmar's Democratization

Summary

There is broad agreement among observers both inside and outside the country that “something significant has happened in Myanmar” since the 2010 elections (Egreteau 2012, p. 30). However, defining the nature of this change has proved contentious.

In this debate, most attention has been focused on the elite level and the new roles of the “triumvirate” of President U Thein Sein, Lower House Speaker Thura U Shwe Mann and “opposition” leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Tin Maung Maung Than 2012). This has meant that the political changes in Myanmar have been described as “a top-down transition” (Egreteau 2012), with democratization coming from above through an elite-led reform agenda. In this top-down reform process, local level politics in most parts of the country is assumed to be largely unchanged. As Holliday (2013, p. 100) suggests, “much changed in Myanmar in 2012, yet for ordinary people much remained the same as reform impacts were confined largely to elites”.

This case study asks whether and how things may have changed for ordinary people in rural areas in Myanmar. Is the process of political change only top-down, or are there ways in which it is also bottom-up? In other words, are rural people waiting for elite-led reforms to reach them, or are they, too, agents of democratization?

In order to answer these questions, this paper examines the situation among networks of village groups in the Ayeyarwady Delta area in southern Myanmar, and particularly their engagement in advocacy related to Myanmar's new land laws. It is based on in-depth interviews conducted in February 2013 with sixteen male and three female members of the networks. It also draws on project records and interviews with five staff from Paung Ku, a civil society-strengthening initiative started in Myanmar in 2007 by a consortium of local and international non-government organizations (NGOs).

All five staff members have been engaged with village-based groups in the Delta since 2008.

DEMOCRATIZATION “FROM BELOW”

In considering the changes in Myanmar, we first acknowledge that “democracy” and “democratization” are contested concepts. While authors such as Schumpeter (1947) focus on a narrow procedural definition of democracy (based primarily on free and fair elections), others broaden the concept to include state accountability through other mechanisms, especially through a watchdog role performed by civic organizations and media (Schedler 1999).