The Enigma of Burma's Tatmadaw: A "State Within a State"

Mary Callahan. Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. xxii + 268 pp. Andrew Selth. Burma's Armed Forces: Power without Glory. Norwalk, Conn.: EastBridge, 2002. xxxvii + 371 pp. Since independence from Great Britain in 1948, Burma (Myanmar) has remained one of the most strife-torn but little-researched countries in Asia. This is especially notable in military affairs. As a result, these two ground-breaking books on the Burmese armed forces by American political scientist Mary Callahan and Australian military analyst Andrew Selth fill a long-standing void in Asian studies. They are essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the complex sociopolitical problems of this deeply troubled land. In spite of the unpopularity of the armed forces implied in the titles of both books, they should also be required reading for the country's ruling officers, who have dominated Burma's political destiny for over four decades. Indeed this very scarcity of independent studies, especially those conducted in the field, symbolizes the twin lack of political space and depths of social malaise that have long existed within the country. There is nothing that is necessarily unique about Burma's postcolonial challenges of transition to a modern nation-state. What, perhaps, is more outstanding is how little these issues have been directly discussed among the leading protagonists themselves.     

A Case Study of a Sport‐for‐Development Programme in Brazil

This article examines the ‘Sport Works’ narrative of sport‐for‐development practitioners of an inter‐organisational sport‐for‐development (SfD) programme utilising rugby to foster positive social transformation in Brazil. In doing so, we address an under‐representation of practitioners who are often seen as subjugated voices in SfD programmes. The paper also addresses an under‐representation of Brazil as a research site in SfD literature. Following several site visits and interviews with practitioners, our data concludes that despite a novel context of Brazil and the alternative values to football offered through the sport of rugby, practitioners and programme managers maintain dominant narratives of social transformation through sport without clear monitoring and evaluation.     

Is Brazil becoming a “boring” country?

The article looks at the condition of Brazil's political system in light of the 1998 electoral results. It critically examines arguments that electoral volatility, political fragmentation and weak institutionalisation have produced a highly unstable political system unsuitable for sound policy‐making and processing change. While not underestimating the influence of electoral rules, it argues that given the combination of political, institutional and economic turmoil of the 1980s, it is not surprising that electoral volatility over the period was amongst the highest in the world. Arguably, however, these factors are now having a diminished impact on the political system, lessening volatility and allowing the emergence of a more institutionalised party system.     

Economics before politics– a colonial phantasy

I shall now try to recapitulate the argument of the paper and to draw a conclusion from it. The early pages gave evidence that, although the Australian government during the 1960s took the initiative in setting up the constitutional framework for a democratic polity, on the whole they assigned primacy, especially in the second half of the period, to policies of economic development. Without entering into the merits or successes of those policies themselves, I attributed the basic order of priorities to a mixture of motives and assumptions. The first assumption was that Australia's colonial responsibility and her commitment to heavily subsidised economic development required restraints on political development, and hence the prolongation of colonial dependence. The conflict between this assumption and Australia's trusteeship obligations could be rationalised by the notion of cautious ‘preparation’ of the people for self-determination, under Australian official guidance, and with the bait of continued Australian aid. This rationalisation seemed to be supported by a ‘vulgar’ Marxian belief in the primacy of economic activity and the secondary importance of political and other social functions. However, it was also hoped that economic change need have no awkward political repercussions. To sustain that hope, it was further assumed that while the colonial regime lasted, the government of Papua and New Guinea could be treated as essentially an administrative task, untrammelled by the claims of autonomous political ideologies and interests. If the policy makers for Papua and New Guinea held such a set of assumptions, consciously or otherwise, it would go far to explain some of the leading features of the country's governmental history in recent years: the strength of its economic planning machinery and the lack of sophistication in its administrative and political dealings; the relatively perfunctory efforts at political ‘preparation’; the attempts to keep local government and the public service ‘non-political’ and to contain incipient politics in the House of Assembly; the paternalistic controls over members of formal government institutions; above all, the failure to maintain meaningful communication with the groups of people most profoundly affected by the incidence of economic development itself. For experience had falsified the basic assumptions of policy, so far as they accord a primary role to economics, relied on a comfortable continuance of the colonial relationship, and conceived government mainly in terms of administration. Politics the demand for the reconciliation of conflicting interests by autonomous negotiation—had erupted in local government, in the House of Assembly, in political associations, and in the villages. I t had erupted in spite of the assumptions of the regime—and also because of them, for the more rigidly such beliefs are practised, the more violent is the reaction likely to be. The conclusion, then, is that politics is independent of economics, and interdependent with it. In the government of Papua and New Guinea, as of any such country, political skills are as important as economic planning if economic growth is to be matched by political stability.     

Fragments of lives arrested; a memoir of Lebanon's Jewish community

This article mines an early history of modern Lebanon by placing a special focus on the country's Jewish community and examining inter-Lebanese relations where Lebanese Jews take centre stage. Like Lebanon's Christians – Maronites in the main – Lebanon's Jews reveal themselves to have played an important role in the establishment of the Lebanese republic as a ‘confederation of minorities’. But the role of Lebanese Jews was a discreet, low-pitched one, and their ‘voices’ and ‘stories’ seem to have been left out of traditional history books. This article is an attempt at correcting a lacuna of exclusion vis-à-vis Lebanese Jews, mending their memory and restoring them to their rightful place as a foundational element of modern Lebanese history and socio-cultural production.     

Dueños,Duendes, Bichos: Non‐Human Agents and the Politics of Place‐Making in a Bolivian Guaraní Community

The article looks at the interactions between the inhabitants of a community of Guaraní people in the Bolivian eastern lowlands and spirit entities found in the forest that forms part of the community's lands. Understanding these interactions as a form of intra‐communal politics, the article engages with the issue of landownership as an ongoing process of negotiation between two different sets of owners. This presents a vision of the political relations between people and spirit beings that is opposed to the currently dominant ontological vision which would put these distinct entities into defined (apolitical) places within a unified cosmovision.     

‘This is not a Favela’: Rio de Janeiro's Urban Quilombo Sacopã and the Limits of Multiculturalism

Under Brazil's 1988 Constitution, quilombo communities have the right to the titles of the lands they occupy. This paper assesses quilombo titles' transformative potential through the experiences of Rio de Janeiro's urban quilombo Sacopã, an ethnic Afro‐descendant community once perceived as a favela. Unlike its neighbours, the community managed to resist the widespread favela removals of the 1970s. Based on an ethnographic approach during fieldwork conducted between December 2013 and January 2014, the article asks: how did Sacopã manage to remain, whilst its surrounding favelas were forcefully removed? Who counts as ethnic? What does this imply for Brazil's afro‐descendant majority?     

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: the Case of Papuan Asylum‐Seekers

It is perilous to look to history to provide guidance for the present. Nonetheless the political controversy surrounding the granting of temporary protection to forty‐two asylum‐seekers from West Papua in March 2006 needs to be understood in its wider, historical context. Papua has been a pebble in the region's political shoe since 1949. And national considerations are not new in shaping Australian policy toward asylum‐seekers. Certainly in the 1960s and 1970s Australia played a tactical, often tough game with Papuan asylum‐seekers in order to contain tensions with Indonesia. This article analyses the history of Australia's foreign and immigration policies towards Papuan asylum‐seekers and describes the delicate balancing act that successive Australian governments have needed to perform in handling this issue.