3 - People Power or Political Pressure? Drivers of Representative Performance in Southern Sub-National Parliaments, Myanmar

Summary

Representation is widely considered to be an essential role of parliaments (Johnson 2005; Ruedin 2012). The extent to which the composition of a parliament reflects the diversity of political opinion, women or marginalised groups in society is an important indicator of genuine representation (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2008). Exisiting scholarship demonstrates the importance of the role of political institutions, political parties and individual MPs, for evaluating an emerging democracy (Judge & Leston- Bandeira 2017). In Myanmar, the representational performance of both elected and military MPs is yet to be determined.

This paper explores the representation of both military and elected MPs in sub-national parliaments in Myanmar and how MPs themselves believe their representative performance contributes to the wider understanding of democratic norms in the public eye. We draw on scholars who apply performativity theory to the study of political institutions (Judge and Leston-Bandeira 2017; Lavi 2016). Performativity allows us to understand the constructed nature of politics and to see the ways in which MPs perform or “act” their role (Loxley 2007). As Judge and Leston-Bandeira (2017, 156) point out, “the ‘picturing’, ‘aesthetic’ or ‘performative’ aspects of representation are central” to assessing representational performance. In applying performativity theory to democracy and democratic institutions, Lavi (2016, 1) suggests that “democracy is not the source of acts and procedures but rather their ‘performative effect,’ a social fiction, perpetually constructed through social enactments, performances, and imagination.” Following from Lavi's work, we explore the way that MPs in Myanmar construct and enact their roles in sub-national parliaments and how that influences their modes of representative performance.

In drawing on this work, we are particularly interested in exploring what constraints MPs face in their representative performance. We build off qualitative research which the authors conducted in three sub-national parliaments: in the Mon and Karen State parliaments and Tanintharyi region parliament in 2018. The rationale for the selection of these smaller parliaments for this study was that since they are among the smallest in the country, they provide a unique insight into the structural issues that impact the representative performance of MPs.