Adjunct faculty instructor David Crumpton and recent MSW graduate Julia Roche will be virtual participants in a July 15-16, 2021 workshop hosted by the Southeast Asia Research Initiative (SEARI) at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand entitled "Democratic Recession in Southeast Asia." Dr. Crumpton is affiliated with SEARI as a senior associate. Their presentation, "A Cost of the February 2021 Coup d’etat: Myanmar’s Pre-Coup Progress in Multi-level Governance-Building," is based on three research projects on which they have collaborated with Dr. Crumpton's Thai and Myanmar doctoral students, Myanmar-based INGO colleagues, and current UMD MSW student Eva Bialobrzeski.
The abstract for their presentation:
Despite the continuing anti-democratic influence of Myanmar’s military on the nation’s governance on all levels, prior to the February 2021 military coup d’etat there was interesting evidence of intersectoral governance-building in many venues across the nation. Although the coup brought many, if not all, of these initiatives to a halt, the premise of this paper is that it is valuable to reflect upon this pre-coup governance-building progress – if for no other reason than to consider how it might inform the eventual re-starting of democratic governance-building in a post-military regime Myanmar. Based on the presenter’s recent published research, the presentation will consider three forms of governance-building in Myanmar: 1) To consider national level governance-building, the development of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Myanmar (SECM) will be examined in terms of responsiveness, accountability, and transparency to assess its characteristics as a “pocket of effectiveness” in a weak governance setting; 2) In terms of governance-building with local/regional implications in a urban setting, the development of the intersectoral Yangon Heritage Trust will considered as a form of governance intended to protect Yangon’s heritage assets, better manage urban development, and contribute to the city’s quality of life; and, 3) To offer evidence on grassroots governance-building in rural settings, consideration will be given to intersectoral governance-building among villages and village-tracts in Chin, Kayah, and Kayin (Karen) States from the prospective of the presenter’s novel “proto-governance” analytic lens.