Contextualising and theorising economic development, local business and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar

Abstract

After Myanmar ended military rule in 2011, significant foreign investment arrived to facilitate a profitable transition to an integrated regional economy, and under the promise that foreign actors can help facilitate peaceful long-term development. However, these firms have also tacitly supported an ethnic cleansing committed by the government that most have partnered with or funded. This article builds theory on economic opening, development and conflict, using research from Myanmar to forward three arguments about business actions in fragile, at-risk countries. First, international-led regulatory reform has had little impact on endemic corruption at the micro-or meso-levels, as local elites and international businesses remain the primary beneficiaries. Second, 'development' is a contentious topic, defined locally not as broad societal growth but the unjustified picking of winners and losers in society by foreign entities. Third, business ventures are exacerbating ethnic tensions through a liberal peace-building mentality that is unresponsive to either local conflicts or local communities. The article closes by offering three ways that these findings open future research avenues on business engagement as peacebuilders and development agents in developing yet fragile states.

Entrepreneurial Strategies to Address Rural-Urban Climate-Induced Vulnerabilities: Assessing Adaptation and Innovation Measures in Dhaka, Bangladesh

“…This is not to say that high-tech solutions are not valuable; indeed, many can be essential, but when choosing which communities to help and how, our interviewees generally experienced that particular types of innovations or technologies will be more effective than others. This supports previous findings that awareness of local context-and mandating local buy-in for project design-is essential [108,109]. As such, climate adaptation measures that accounted for and included the experiences, needs and knowledge of marginalized groups, while simultaneously recognizing and contending with the inherently political nature of urban climate resilience transitions, tended to be the most impactful and the most durable, again in support of previous findings [110,111].…”

Responsible Business in Fragile Contexts: Comparing Perceptions from Domestic and Foreign Firms in Myanmar

“…Due to the limitations of the survey format, we restricted our questions to 8 of the 17 SDGs: Goals 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 16, also providing an "other" option to respondents. We selected these eight based on previous pilot research suggesting these as the most important for firms working in Myanmar [8,87].…”

“…We first offer a brief description of the Myanmar business setting (for a more comprehensive discussion of this section, and Myanmar's unique role in business-conflict dynamics, see [8]). Myanmar's celebrated economic opening has led to rapid but uneven economic expansion in a still-fragile society, with positive and negative social consequences.…”

Business against violence: assessing how business impacts peace

“…This first contention – that businesses can promote peace simply by operating in conflict-ridden areas – has been the one most promoted outside the B4P literature (Sato and Scudder, 2017; Shoji, 2019) and the one that has come under the most criticism from within it (Miklian, 2019; Miklian et al , 2016). In particular, scholars have noted that the unevenness of beneficiaries from economic development in conflict zones often exacerbates existing tensions (Canson, 2019; Miller et al , 2019).…”