Economy and social justice (global)

See also OBL top-level category: "Development - focus on Sustainable and Endogenous Development"
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Description: "Amartya Kumar Sen (pronounced /ˈɔmort:o ˈʃen/; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher of Bengali ethnicity, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, economic and social justice, economic theories of famines, and indexes of the measure of well-being of citizens of developing countries. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 and Bharat Ratna in 1999 for his work in welfare economics. He was also awarded the inaugural Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize in recognition of his work on welfare economics in February 2015 during a reception at the Royal Academy in the UK.[4] He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He served as the chancellor of Nalanda University. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, a distinguished fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an honorary fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he served as Master from 1998 to 2004.[5].."
Source/publisher: Wikipedia
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-06
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Elinor Claire "Lin" Ostrom (August 7, 1933 ? June 12, 2012) was an American political economist[1][2][3] whose work was associated with the New Institutional Economics and the resurgence of political economy.[4] In 2009, she shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Oliver E. Williamson for "her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons". To date, she remains the only woman to win The Prize in Economics.[5] After graduating with a B.A. and Ph.D. from UCLA, Ostrom lived in Bloomington, Indiana, and served on the faculty of both Indiana University and Arizona State University. She held the rank of distinguished professor at Indiana University and was the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, as well as research professor and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University in Tempe. She was a lead researcher for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP), managed by Virginia Tech and funded by USAID.[6] Beginning in 2008, she and her husband Vincent Ostrom advised the journal Transnational Corporations Review.[7].."
Source/publisher: Wikipedia
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-06
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Focus on the Global South is a program of development policy research, analysis and action. Focus engages in research, analysis, advocacy and grassroots capacity building on critical issues. It was founded in 1995 and is currently attached to the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute (CUSRI) in Bangkok, Thailand. Focus was founded, the same year the World Trade Organization came into existence. At that time, the system of corporate-driven globalisation was at its apogee. Focus?s program and structure reflected the priorities of a people?s movement that was facing a steep uphill struggle as it grappled with the impact of globalisation on the daily lives and struggles of the poor and marginalized people in the South. Today, corporate-driven globalisation is suffering a deep crisis of legitimacy globally and is on the ideological defensive, even as its poverty-creating, inequality-increasing, and ecologically destructive structure and dynamics continue to grind on. Focus has also traveled considerably from its starting point. It is today widely considered a ?key player? in the global movement for a different and better world. Its analyses of global developments are extensively consulted, as are its suggestions for structural change. Focus? goals have not changed. They continue to be the dismantling of oppressive economic and political structures and institutions, the creation of liberating structures and institutions, demilitarization, and the promotion of peace-building instead of conflict. It is the programmatic and organizational expressions of these goals that need to be adapted to the changes in the global balance of forces" ... Rich seam of articles, links, news etc.
Source/publisher: Focus on the Global South
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-10
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, French, Spanish, Thai, Indonesian, Portuguese
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Description: Advancing the politics of small deeds.... "In this beautifully animated clip from Dirt! The Movie, Wangari Maathai tells an inspiring tale of doing the best you can under seemingly interminable odds. Join us at www.DirtTheMovie.org"
Creator/author: Wangari Maathai
Source/publisher: www.DirtTheMovie.org
Date of entry/update: 2016-01-22
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, ForMemRS,[1] FBA (born February 9, 1943), is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and is a former member and chairman of the (US president?s) Council of Economic Advisers.[2][3] He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, laissez-faire economists (whom he calls "free market fundamentalists"), and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001, and received that university?s highest academic rank (university professor) in 2003. He was the founding chair of the university?s Committee on Global Thought. He also chairs the University of Manchester?s Brooks World Poverty Institute. He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 2009 the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d?Escoto Brockmann, appointed Stiglitz as the chairman of the U.N. Commission on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, where he oversaw suggested proposals and commissioned a report on reforming the international monetary and financial system.[4] He served as chair of the international Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, appointed by President Sarkozy of France, which issued its report in 2010, Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP doesn?t add up,[5] and currently serves as co-chair of its successor, the High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. From 2011 to 2014, Stiglitz was president of the International Economic Association (IEA).[6] He presided over the organization of the IEA triennial world congress held near the Dead Sea in Jordan in June 2014.[7] Stiglitz has received more than 40 honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities and been decorated by several governments including Korea, Colombia, Ecuador, and most recently France, where he was appointed a member of the Legion of Honor, order Officer. Based on academic citations, Stiglitz is the 3rd most influential economist in the world today,[8] and in 2011 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[9] Stiglitz?s work focuses on income distribution, asset risk management, corporate governance, and international trade. He is the author of several books, the latest being The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them (2015), Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity (2015), and Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth Development and Social Progress (2014).[10]..."
Source/publisher: Wikipedia
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-06
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Institute for Economics & Peace responds to an open letter regarding its recent Global Terrorism report. We have recently been contacted regarding concerns arising from Myanmar’s listing in the 2022 Global Terrorism Index. This letter is a response to your article dated 11 May 2022, titled ‘An Open Letter to the Institute for Economics & Peace.’ IEP welcomes feedback and we are open to receiving critiques of our research. This is demonstrated by our actions in the amendment of the report, and the public statement issued prior to receiving the open letter: Statement regarding Myanmar & the Global Terrorism Index – Vision of Humanity. Having now received the open letter, we feel several of the characterisations deserve the right of reply. IEP is an internationally respected not-for-profit organisation. Our aim is to understand the drivers and the economic benefits of peace, and our research is highly regarded by many of the leading institutions in the world. IEP’s work on peace is cited in thousands of courses, and we train many thousands each month through our online academies and in-person workshops. Throughout IEP’s history, we have been engaged in both developmental aid and peacebuilding projects in Myanmar. IEP and its key personnel have been involved in Myanmar for over twenty years, and currently has several projects with which it is actively engaged in, including water, education and peacebuilding training. The Global Terrorism Index One critique of the 2022 Global Terrorism Index has been the perceived failure to address acts perpetrated by the junta. The Global Terrorism Index, since its inception, has always excluded acts of state-sponsored terror. IEP covers state-sponsored terror in its other reports. We acknowledge that the classification of acts of terrorism is a difficult and sensitive topic. There are a variety of perceptions toward the definition of terrorism. Many acts that could be considered legitimate acts of war can become unclear, depending upon the circumstances of a particular attack. For example, attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq on US soldiers are considered terrorism under certain circumstances by sources other than IEP. IEP’s approach to this is to draw on credible data sources, and to align with the coding of these sources. In the case of specific attacks mentioned in the open letter, these were codified as terror attacks at the time of writing. However, after constructive discussions from proactive members of the community, the decision was made to remove these from the report. IEP’s response When the initial concerns were raised, IEP engaged with a number of external experts who constructively worked with us to assess the issues and decide on an appropriate action. None of these individuals signed the open letter. It is from these discussions that we took the decision to amend the Global Terrorism Index and issue a public statement. It was only after we had taken this action that we received the open letter. Given our willingness to engage, we are disappointed that we were not contacted before the letter was written. At the point of sharing, our response was public and should have been acknowledged. Given this, we feel that the open letter process could have been conducted in a far less peaceful way. What is particularly disappointing is that out of the hundred signatories, only one individual contacted IEP prior to the publishing of the letter. In conclusion The issues surrounding Myanmar are deeply sensitive. We carefully considered the concerns raised and redacted Myanmar from the 2022 Global Terrorism Index. We fail to see how this open letter has contributed towards constructive dialogue. We should surely all be working towards the same goal around these issues, and seeking to create meaningful change in the world..."
Source/publisher: "Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
2022-05-16
Date of entry/update: 2022-05-16
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Description: "To the Institute of Economics and Peace: Dear Steve Killelea, Board of Directors, As scholars and analysts who specialise in politics and society in Myanmar, we express deep concern over your recent Global Terrorism Index report, in which the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) depicts anti-junta resistance in Myanmar as “terrorism”. Indeed, we strongly disagree with your overall depiction of events in Myanmar, which is analytically flawed, morally bankrupt, and politically problematic. According to your report, the “country with the largest total increases in deaths from terrorism was Myanmar, where the number of people killed rose from 24 in 2020 to 521 in 2021… Anti-junta armed groups were responsible for over half of terrorism deaths in Myanmar in 2021. The majority of deaths occurred during attacks targeting government and military personnel.” The examples that you cite for what you call “deaths from terrorism” are attacks on military personnel by anti-junta forces, such as: “Gunmen killed 40 soldiers in the Sagaing region. No group had claimed responsibility, but local media said that anti-junta groups were responsible for the attack“ or a “bomb targeting a military convoy of eight vehicles killed thirty soldiers in the Magway region. The Yesagyo Peoples’ Defence Force, an anti-junta armed group, claimed responsibility for the attack.” This is analytically flawed. Defining terrorism as targeting military targets contradicts most academic definitions of terrorism, including your own definition on p.6 of the Global Terrorism Index, where you define terrorism as a ‘the systematic threat or use of violence whether for or in opposition to established authority, with the intention of communicating a political, religious or ideological message to a group larger than the victim group, by generating fear and so altering (or attempting to alter) the behaviour of the larger group. Your report consequently exempts “acts of warfare, either irregular or conventional”. While there is a lack of definite agreement on the phenomenon of terrorism, most academic literature, indeed, differentiates between “guerrilla” and “terrorist” violence for good reason. Guerrillas seek to effectuate political change by targeting the state and its agents. They commonly do so by means of irregular warfare (precisely as in the above examples provided in your report). Terrorists, in contrast, intentionally target civilians in order to achieve their goals. The direct targets of terrorism (civilians) serve as “message generators” in the process of “violence-based communication” with the main target of terrorism (e.g., the state or society). Their aim is to spark terror amongst civilian populations. Your report cites no such incidents in Myanmar. This is also why guerrillas can abide by International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In fact, the IHL regulating non-international armed conflict – by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, as well as Additional Protocol II – renders armed forces as legitimate military targets (terrorist violence stands, by definition, in contradiction of IHL because of its targeting of civilians). Attacks on soldiers by non-state resistance forces in Myanmar are thus clearly within the bounds of the laws of war as long as they follow the principles of distinction and proportionality. Nothing in your report suggests that they do not. Even if one included attacks on police forces, the situation in Myanmar remains firmly within these legal boundaries. This is because police forces in Myanmar are under direct control of the military, regularly act in support of military troops, and frequently use battlefield-grade weaponry, such as assault rifles. Anti-junta forces do not target civilians in order to generate fear and alter the behavior of a larger group. They target their state opponent directly. But presenting non-state armed resistance forces that engage in irregular warfare against legitimate military targets as terrorists is not only analytically flawed. It is also morally bankrupt given a context of state terrorism, i.e., a situation where the state itself uses indiscriminate violence against civilian populations in order to punish and intimidate its opponents. A truthful report of the biggest terrorist attacks in Myanmar in the past year, would thus not be the killing of 40 soldiers in Sagaing or 30 soldiers in Magwai, as cited in your report. Instead, the biggest terrorist attacks in the last year were the massacres in Hlaing Tharyar in March 2021 and Bago, where security forces killed more than 65 and 80 unarmed civilians during peaceful protests respectively. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg of state terrorism in Myanmar, where security forces have committed countless atrocities for decades, including genocide, and continue doing so, for instance, through systematically destroying civilian settlements across Myanmar, in what the United Nations special envoy for human rights in Myanmar, rightly describes as “a campaign of terror”. Notwithstanding these disturbing shortcomings, international think tanks like yours produce “facts” about the world, breaking down complex politics into easily digestible pieces of information for political stakeholders, including policymakers. This is why the distortion of reality in your report ultimately becomes politically problematic. It serves to delegitimize the legitimate and lawful actions of anti-junta guerrillas in Myanmar as unlawful terrorism. In doing so, your report mobilizes the same narrative as the military junta in Myanmar. In effect – and in contradiction to its claim of being non-partisan – the IEP is legitimizing and normalizing a terror regime that has illegally toppled a democratically elected government and couped itself to power. We thus demand that IEP retracts or corrects the sections of your report related to Myanmar, bringing the depicted empirical reality into compliance with academic definitions of terrorism, including your own. Moreover, we demand a public statement that includes an apology to the anti-junta forces in Myanmar for your wrongful depiction of their legitimate and lawful resistance. Sincerely, Dr David Brenner, Lecturer, Department of International Relations, University of Sussex Georg Bauer, PhD candidate, Department of History, University of Vienna Dr Hans Steinmüller, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, LSE Dr Laurence Cox, Associate Professor, National University of Ireland Maynooth Dr. Charlie Thame, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University Dr John Buchanan, Associate, Asia Center, Harvard University Dr Ronan Lee, Doctoral Prize Fellow, Loughborough University London Dr. Su Lin Lewis, Associate Professor, University of Bristol Dr. Jonathan Saha, Associate Professor, University of Durham Dr Chika Watanabe, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester Dr Alexandre Pelletier, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Laval University Dr Jenny Hedström, Associate Professor, Swedish Defence University Dr Matthew J Walton, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Dr Elisabeth Olivius, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Umeå University Professor Bridget Anderson, University of Bristol Associate Professor Anthony Ware, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia Dr. Gerard McCarthy, Research Fellow, National University of Singapore Asia Research Institute Htet Min Lwin, PhD student, Department of Humanities, York University, Toronto Dr Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, International Studies, University of South Australia Dr Morten B. Pedersen, Senior Lecturer, International Politics, University of New South Wales Canberra Christopher Lamb, Honorary Associate Professor, University of Melbourne; President, Australia Myanmar Institute Dr Joseph Lo Bianco, Emeritus Professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne Dr Charlotte Galloway, Honorary Associate Professor, Australian National University, Canberra Dr Patrick Meehan, Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London Kim Jolliffe, independent researcher focused on security and conflict in Myanmar Dr Kevin Woods, Research Fellow, East-West Center, Hawai’i Dr Susan Banki, Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney Dr Nick Cheesman, Associate Professor, Australian National University Dr Kate Crosby, Professor of Buddhist Studies, King’s College, London Luke James Corbin, PhD Researcher, Australian National University Dr Kristina Kironska, Senior Researcher, Palacky University Olomouc Dr. Mike McGovern, Professor, University of Michigan Dr. Elliott Prasse-Freeman, Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore Kei Nemoto, Professor, Sophia University, Tokyo Adam Czarnota, Professor, Wroclaw University, Wroclaw & Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney Dr. Leedom Lefferts, Carolina Asia Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina Prof. Dr. Judith Beyer, Head of the Working Group “Social and Political Anthropology”, University of Konstanz. Germany Dominique Dillabough-Lefebvre, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, LSE Chu May Paing, PhD Researcher, University of Colorado Boulder Dr. Sai Latt, Research Affiliate, York University, Toronto, Canada, Chiangmai University, Thailand Anders Kirstein Moeller, PhD Student, Department of Geography, NUS Dr. Nicola Tannenbaum, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA Tharaphi Than, Associate Professor, Northern Illinois University Dr Tin Mar Oo, MSc Student, Post Graduate School of Politics and Science, University of Edinburgh Kristian Stokke, Professor, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo Dr Peter Bjorklund, Independent post-doc Researcher, University of Manchester, United Kingdom Dr Michael Edwards, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cambridge Dr Sharon Bell, Independent Researcher, Aotearoa, New Zealand Dr Leanne M. Kelly, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Deakin University, Melbourne Dr Johanna Garnett, Lecturer in Peace Studies, University of New England, Armidale Dr Bill Vistarini, Australian National University (Retired) Dr Anne Décobert, Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne Matt Schissler, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan Godwin Yidana, PhD Researcher in Peace Studies, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. Professor Melissa Crouch, Faculty of Law & Justice, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Dr Renaud Egreteau, Associate Professor, Department of Asian and International Studies, City University of Hong Kong Dorothy Mason, Researcher, Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University Dr. Roger Lee Huang, Lecturer in Counterterrorism and Political Violence, Macquarie University Dr. Wen-Chin Chang, Research Fellow, Academia Sinica Moe Thuzar, Doctoral Candidate, History Department, National University of Singapore Dr Yuri Takahashi, Lecturer in Burmese, Australian National University Aung Kaung Myat, MPhil Candidate, University of Hong Kong Peter Suante, PhD Researcher, The Department of Education, The University of Hong Kong Dr R.J. May, Emeritus Fellow, Australian National University Dr. Lisa Brooten, Associate Professor, College of Arts and Media, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA Dr Michael Breen, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, The University of Melbourne Dr Vicki-Ann Ware, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia Mr. Tual Sawn Khai, PhD researcher in Sociology and Social Policy, School of Graduate Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong Professor Bill Pritchard, Professor in Human Geography, The University of Sydney Jack Jenkins Hill, PhD candidate, Department of Anthropology, University College London (UCL) David Scott Mathieson, Independent analyst and author specializing on Burma Dr Cecile Medail, Visiting Fellow, Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University Dr Elisabeth Jean Wood, Co-Director of Agrarian Studies and Professor of Political Science, International and Area Studies, Yale University Dr. Rosalie Metro, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum, University of Missouri-Columbia Dr Tomas Cole, Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University Dr Dominique Caouette, Professor of Political Science, Université de Montréal Prof. David I. Steinberg, Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies Emeritus, Georgetown University James F. Cerretani, Goldsmiths, University of London, Anthropology Dr Elin Bjarnegård, Associate Professor, Department of Government, Uppsala University Martin Smith, author and independent analyst on conflict in Myanmar Siew Han Yeo, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto Dr Anna Plunket, Lecturer in International Relations, King’s College London Dr Jasnea Sarma, Lecturer in Political Geography, University of Zurich Minn Tent Bo, London based Independent Consultant focused on human rights, democracy and elections in Myanmar Leigh Mitchell, London-based Independent Consultant focused on governance, development finance/effectiveness and investment in Myanmar Samia C. Akhter-Khan, PhD candidate, Department of Health Service & Population Research, King’s College London Ambassador Kelley Currie (ret.) Dr Andrew Fagan, Director of Human Rights Centre, at the University of Essex Nora Wuttke, PhD Researcher, SOAS University of London Catherine Morris, Independent researcher, and Associate of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria Prof. James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University Professor Lee Jones, Professor of Political Economy and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London Dr Liyun Wendy Choo, Professional Teaching Fellow, University of Auckland Dr Sally Bamford, Alumni, Australian National University Dr. Francesco Buscemi, Research Fellow, Einaudi Foundation Dr Justine Chambers, Postdoctoral Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies Professor Kirsten McConnachie, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, University of East Anglia Professor Martin Krygier AM, Gordon Samuels Professor of Law and Social Theory, University of New South Wales, Sydney Ponpavi Sangsuradej, PhD Researcher. Faculty of History. SOAS, University of London Alex Moodie, PhD Candidate, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University Vishnu Prasad, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography & Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Paul Taylor, Technical Adviser and Independent Myanmar Researcher Dr. Stephen Campbell, Assistant Professor, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Dr. Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, Professor, Political Science Department, University of Massachusetts Lowell Thawng Za Pum, Doctoral student, Institute of Political Science, University of Erlangen–Nuremberg Francesca Chiu, PhD Researcher, School of International Development, University of East Anglia Oren Samet, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley Greg Tyrosvoutis, EdD Candidate, Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, University of Toronto Richard Roewer, Research Fellow, German Institute for Global and Area Studies, DPhil Student, University of Oxford Dr Kerstin Duell, Goethe University Frankfurt Khin Thet San, Research Fellow, South Asia Institute, SOAS, University of London Dr Stefano Ruzza, Associate Professor, Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin..."
Source/publisher: "Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
2022-05-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-05-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Supporting Business for Socially Responsible Disengagement
Description: "It has been more than a year since the military junta seized power illegally in Myanmar. Our nation is facing one of its darkest moments. Just as the excesses of the junta against its own people have deterred ethical and responsible businesses from investing anew in Myanmar, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to continue their operations. Businesses have been forced to consider whether their continued presence in the country is consistent with their own values in business ethics and social responsibility. Many have simply decided to disengage and divest. The National Unity Government (NUG) values the contribution made by investors in the development of our country. During the now lost decade of relative freedom, foreign investors have created jobs and lifted masses from poverty. Whether they decide to divest or not under the present hostile environment is an active business decision. As with any business decision, due diligence must be exercised in deciding to divest. While the people of Myanmar are resisting oppression by a murderous military regime, guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide, the businesses need must assess whether their actions risk harming the people or helping their oppressors. The NUG published our ‘three-pillar framework’ guidance on responsible investment in July 2021. We are now issuing the government’s policy on socially responsible divestment. In this document, we provide an ethical framework, alongside practical guidance on when and how to consider divestment and the process of doing so. It is our intention that this document will articulate overarching principle. Detailed guidance will be available from the ministry on a case-by-case or sector-by-sector basis, recognising the nuances in applying these principles into practice. Our policies are consistent with the principles set out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations guiding principles. How responsible businesses act in Myanmar will become the benchmark against which future divestment decisions are judged. The NUG recognises the dilemmas faced by responsible businesses in trying to make right decisions. We stand ready to assist businesses which try to make decisions that help the people of Myanmar. In any struggle for life and liberty, the right side will always prevail. Soon, in a representative federal democratic union, we look forward to welcome back businesses that had the interests of the Myanmar people at heart..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment - NUG
2022-04-02
Date of entry/update: 2022-04-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "As Myanmar continues its transition from a military state to a quasi-democratic one, its eco- nomic growth rates have risen concomitantly (World Bank Group 2014, 7). Given the penury to which the country descended over the military period, Myanmar's masses would appear poised to reap benefits from this growth, as the rising tide lifts all boats (Farrelly 2016). How- ever, closer examination of the structure of the political economy (see Chapter 18; Nyo Tun 2016) dampens enthusiasm: average Myanmar people face four interlacing challenges - a highly resource-extractive growth model; agrarian displacement; few good jobs to reabsorb displaced labourers; and inadequate or eroding safety nets - that may leave them materially worse off. First, Myanmar's growth model remains dependent on natural resource extraction (Bissinger 2012; World Bank Group 2014, 16), a phenomenon which in comparative cases has led to marked increases in inequality (Gylfason & Zoega 2002). Such extractive sectors, which in Myanmar include the illicit drugs trade (Winn 2015), have few economic linkages - meaning they create few jobs relative to the rents they generate. Current market liberalisation is merely facilitating an intensification of such resource exploitation, as foreign investment skews mas- sively towards the extractive sector (World Bank Group 2014, 16). Myanmar's exceedingly thin political-economic elite (only 7.5 per cent of the population is middle class or afiluent - see Shein Thu Aung 2013) has benefited by illicitly capturing resource rents, policing entrance to this rarefied stratum by requiring personalised connections to a military-elite clique (Larkin 2015); by entrenching themselves as the only viable businesses (Ford et al. 2016) they potentially crowd out non-aligned prospective entrants. Second, legal 'reforms' have made land an alienable asset, providing an alluring investment opportunity for agribusinesses, industrial zone managers, narcotics money launderers (Meehan 2011) and land speculators. These reforms together with the aforementioned land-intensive resource extraction put immense pressure on the livelihood base of Myanmar's poor: land is being stripped from both peasants and urbanites through means both 'legal' (evictions and debt dispossession) and extra-legal (violent land grabs). Third, infrastructure and logistics deficits - not to mention a global political-economic structure that provides barriers to economic 'structural transformation' for such a late 'late developer' (Waldner 1999) - mean that displaced masses are not reabsorbed into any bourgeoning high productivity economic sector such as manufacturing. 404 Class and inequality Finally, meagre public services do not provide the marginalised with opportunities to break the cycle of underemployment: education and health in particular are sectors in which the wealthy consume high-quality private services (often outside Myanmar), while the poor survive on underfunded and under-qualified public options. Further, resource rent management pro- cesses remain inscrutable (World Bank Group 2014, 42) and hence revenues may be siphoned off rather than being allocated to those starved public good sectors. Added to this, traditional networks of care and support may be eroding: increasingly necessary migration (ILO 2015) disrupts village life and horizontal community bonds therein (Boutry 2013), while an ascendant bourgeois ethos celebrating individual accomplishment combined with elite reorientation to a now-accessible global consumptive marketplace means that vertical patronage bonds may degrade. Myanmar is hence rapidly becoming a visibly unequal place, as a military-business elite asserts itself, flaunting luxuriant lifestyles (Mahtani 2014) that flourish in the interstices of the country's largely destitute environment. This is a moment of explicit class consolidation - complete with the ideological succour provided by self-help gurus justifying accumulation as available to all with 'positive' attitudes. How will the excluded respond: will the pullulating protests roiling in Myanmar today mobilise broader movements? Or will the poor feel placated by the country's ubiquitous 'development' discourse, believing broad benefits (either material or only symbolic) will trickle down to them (Prasse-Freeman 2014)? This chapter will proceed by sketching Myanmar's political economy over the past two centuries, focusing on facets that prevented both grossly unequal conditions from developing and class-consciousness from forming. It will then tum to the current political economy, further elaborating the four challenges sketched above. The chapter will then conclude with a discus- sion of perceptions of class and inequality in the country. Historical equality in shared exploitation As elaborated by scholars of dynastic Myanmar and Southeast Asia (Scott 2009, Aung-Thwin 1990, and Lieberman 1984, inter alia), Myanmar's pre-colonial political economy revolved around the control of rice paddy production. Authorities built decentralised systems of taxation and regulation through which they garnered tribute from regional leaders, who in turn extracted resources from those further away institutionally and physically. Critical for our purposes, within this political economy key institutions helped peasants manage exploitation. Aung-Thwin (1984) outlines the way subjects sought out bonded relationships to patrons or institutions that secured their lives and livelihoods, while Scott (1972) describes how the political-economic 'terms of trade' were relatively decent for a peasant producer who could nonetheless rely on kin and village to mitigate shocks. In later work, Scott (2009) posits that if elites violated the terms of these bonds, the hills and swamps surrounding Myanmar's lowlands provided areas to which subjects could flee (c( Lieberman 2010, 339-342). While more research is necessary to assess whether this compelled any concessions by rulers, at the very least the evidence suggests that conditions eroded for peasants during the colonial period. The British colonial project (1824-194 7) generally undermined village risk manage- ment mechanisms (by enclosing common resources and inducting peasants into the perilous cash economy - see Scott 1972, 25-26), and in particular radically transformed the Delta areas of the Ayeyawaddy river into an enormous rice producer by inducing peasants to clear swamps and plant paddy. While this turned Myanmar into 'the rice bowl of Asia', historian Ian Brown describes the ultimately disastrous effects of this colonial rice-export economy: by continually rejecting legal and policy protection schemes for farmers (such as conditional debt forgiveness laws or crop diversification policies), the colonial administration made peasants vulnerable to 405 Elliott Prasse-Freeman and Phyo Win Latt cycles of dispossession. The British themselves noted the way they were undermining the long- term health of the Burmese political economy, and yet chose to only deepen their extraction practices (Brown 2013, 37-44). Moreover, this myopic focus on rice retarded the development of any non-rice sectors (including more human capital-intensive ones); further, by importing Indian clerks to run the administration, and by promoting Indian (and Chinese) capital to lubri- cate the economy, the colonial period systematically excluded Burmese from the state and the few advanced sectors of the economy. Hence, external shocks such as the Great Depression and World War II decimated the brittle economy, and Burma staggered into independence with little capital (Indians had fled or been expelled), rice fields destroyed, infrastructure cut, without domestic manufacturing, with few experienced administrators and facing a country-wide insur- gency exacerbating those challenges. Against conventional wisdom about Burma's bright post- independence future, the country was hardly poised to be a successful economy before the mismanagement of the military period. The military era further exacerbated Myanmar's decline. In the context of economic and administrative ruin, and numerous insurgencies mobilised along ideological and ethnic lines, Burma's military emerged as an ambitious and capable actor (Callahan 2003), ultimately able to build a hybrid rentier state (Prasse-Freeman 2012): while fighting off those many insurgencies, the military-state apparatus extracted the country's natural resources and cut a set of 'bargains' with the populace. Rural dwellers got land, but were compelled to give up much of their rice yield to the state; urbanites got cheap rice, but there was no competent industrialisation and no growth. Both groups were denied political freedoms. The military was able to violate those bargains at whim - as in the Delta area where thousands of farmers were dispossessed of their land after not delivering their rice yield quotas (GRET 2015). Yet, such expedient violations bring into question claims such as Brown's that the military governments of this era 'stressed equity rather than increased productivity' (Brown 2013, 185); when read through the lens of the military's interests, low inequality was less a policy goal - less a choice for which 'produc- tivity' was sacrificed - than a secondary effect derived from the military's prosecution of its organisational objectives. As Brown himself notes, the military never addressed landlessness (in fact, scholars at GRET show that the military created it), and by 2000 'nearly ten million people [were) largely dependent on laboring wages alone' {Brown 2013, 185). Unlike other so-called late-developers in the greater region (such as Taiwan and South Korea - see Waldner 1999), the rents extracted by the military were not reinvested into the building of an advanced manu- facturing sector (hence structurally transforming the economy), but were rather directed at maintaining a system of political domination through an ever-growing apparatus of organised violence. As we will elaborate on below, the military's self-interests subverted any rhetorical pretence for equality and socialism; people were equal in their poverty (Khin Maung Kyi et al. 2000, 130--131). As the military continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s to consolidate its position within the state, it relinquished some direct control of the economy, pivoting towards market experi- mentation by encouraging an improvisational quasi-entrepreneurial form of wealth extraction, one that resulted in two significant transfers of productive resources. The first saw the dispos- session of average Burmese people: various state agencies were encouraged to embrace the market economy by serting up their own 'development' projects, meaning that ill-equipped ministries grabbed land from farmers and attempted to establish industrial projects (sugar pro- duction, etc.), with predictably disastrous results (see Woods 2014); as the military continued to win wars against ethnic and other various non-state armed groups, it collaborated with those vanquished elites for shared resource exploitation (Woods 2011), resulting in marginalisation of ethnic masses (Brenner 2015)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Elliott Prasse-Freeman and Phyo Win Latt
2018-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "THE SPECTRE OF HOPE brings together art critic John Berger, author of WAYS OF SEEING, and world-renowned photographer Sebastião. Critic and writer John Berger talks with brazilean photographer Sebastião Salgado on his photographs book Migrations..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Sebastião Salgado and John Berger via YouTube
2018-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Chinese enterprises are frequently encountering obstacles as they invest in overseas markets. Foreign direct investment activities are often politicised because they can impact the domestic politics of host countries. Overseas direct investment (ODI) can bring new rules and practices for corporate operation, which can trigger political debates regarding standards of ‘market behaviour’ in host countries. The most direct effect of ODI is changing the income distribution of social groups in the host country. Those with positive views of ODI believe it can significantly increase the demand for labour in the host country and contribute to an improvement in labour conditions. But local owners of capital are likely to encounter rising costs and intensified market competition. Those with a negative view of ODI believe that it can widen labour income gaps and worsen conditions for low-income groups. A pro-labour government may encourage ODI inflows that contribute to improvements in workers’ wellbeing, while a pro-capital government may encourage ODI inflows that will lower labour costs. For these reasons, the type of political obstacles that investors encounter are closely related to issues of redistribution in the host country. Employment security is the biggest political appeal of ODI. ODI enterprises generally have a competitive advantage and offer higher wages and more stable jobs. But ODI inflows may have a negative effect on the employment of low-skilled workers in the recipient industry..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
2019-11-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 39.45 KB (3 pages)
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Description: "Reality once again demonstrates that in a trade war surplus countries like China hold a disadvantage against those with deficits such as the United States. But with little to show for its efforts, it is not in the best interests of the United States to fight with China. The best option for both sides is to reach an agreement. US President Donald Trump’s trade war has not achieved its original objectives. First, the US total current account deficits will remain massive this year. The politically sensitive goods trade deficit with China in the first half of 2019 registered US$167 billion. Second, the trade war has failed to impede China’s technological enhancement. Despite the Chinese government and media renouncing the slogan ‘Made in China 2025’, China continued boosting investment and innovation in the strategic industries listed under the initiative. Geo-economic factors are also intensifying downside risks to the US macroeconomic outlook, as shown by the recent economic indicators. But China still has more palpable losses. US tariffs have slowed China’s GDP by an estimated 0.6 per cent. The trade war also affects GDP through indirect channels. It has driven dozens of firms to shift their supply chains from China to ASEAN countries and deterred Chinese investment in the United States. Chinese global investment is decreasing, but investment in the United States has shrunk more significantly from US$24 billion in 2017 to US$9 billion in 2018 and US$3.2 billion in 2019..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
2019-10-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 35.93 KB (4 pages)
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Description: 76 photographs of Brazilian photographer, Sebastiao Salgado.
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Sebastiao Salgado"
2006-12-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "China extended to Myanmar 7.378 million U.S. dollars’ Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Special Fund for the second batch on Wednesday for use in management of projects under the fund. The agreement on the provision was signed in Nay Pyi Taw between Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang and Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, represented by Permanent Secretary U Myint Thu. The special fund is to be applied by eight Myanmar ministries to implement 19 projects. Hong Liang said the LMC is a project emerging rapidly in a short duration and is also an effective cooperation in the region..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-01-25
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: China is leading the effort to create the world’s largest economic platform
Description: "More than 2,000 years ago, China’s imperial envoy Zhang Qian helped to establish the Silk Road, a network of trade routes that linked China to Central Asia and the Arab world. The name came from one of China’s most important exports— silk. And the road itselfinfluenced the development of the entire region for hundreds of years. In 2013, China’s president, Xi Jinping, proposed establishing a modern equivalent, creating a network of railways, roads, pipelines, and utility grids that would link China and Central Asia,West Asia, and parts of South Asia. This initiative, One Belt and One Road (OBOR), comprises more than physical connections. It aims to create the world’s largest platform for economic cooperation, including policy coordination, trade and financing collaboration, and social and cultural cooperation. Through open discussion, OBOR can create benefits for everyone. The State Council authorized an OBOR action plan in 2015 with two main components: the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (exhibit)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Google Scholar" via McKinsey & Company
2017-04-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 2.72 MB
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Description: "Nomiki Konst (TYT Politics) interviews former Greek Finance Minister and Greek Member of Parliament Yanis Varoufakis. Get ?Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism? here: http://a.co/eXqqRNt
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Young Turks *TYT) via Youtube)
2018-05-21
Date of entry/update: 2018-05-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "In this powerful and positive talk for The Gaia Foundation, George Monbiot brings to life his new book, Out of the Wreckage - A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. George explains how a toxic ideology of extreme competition and individualism not only rules the world, but misrepresents human nature, thereby destroying hope and common purpose whilst fracturing communities and the ecosystems upon which we all depend. He argues that only a positive vision can replace it; a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world, and a more respectful relationship with our beautiful planet. George explore new findings in psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology cast human nature in a radically different light: as the supreme altruists and cooperators. He shows how we can build on these findings to create a new politics: a ?politics of belonging?, and a politics which has community, reciprocity and respect for all species at its heart. Both democracy and economic life can be radically reorganised from the bottom up, enabling us to take back control and overthrow the forces that have thwarted our ambitions for a better society and better stewardship of the Earth. George provides a thrilling and positive vision, and the hope and clarity required to change the world."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Gaia Foundation
2017-12-14
Date of entry/update: 2018-05-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: The International Monetary Fund forecast this month that Myanmar?s economy would rebound to 6.7 percent this year—surpassing many of its neighbors in growth. Among the National League for Democracy-led government?s economic priorities is "broadening its revenue base through improved tax collection. For a cash-based country accustomed to backchannel exchanges that has continued to decentralize, reforming the tax collection process is a challenge, to put it mildly. However, examples of technology applications removing some barriers to revenue collection are emerging, particularly at the municipal level..."
Source/publisher: The Asia Foundation
2017-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2018-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatisation of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. Offering a critique of the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways - both successful and unsuccessful - of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organisations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries."
Creator/author: Elinor Ostrom
Source/publisher: Internet
Date of entry/update: 2015-01-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.21 MB
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