Following the suppression of the nation-wide popular movement against military authoritarianism in 1988, Myanmar was shunned and isolated by much of the international community for over two decades. This came to an end with the multiparty elections of November 2010 and the installation of a semi-civilian, semi-elected government.

Ensuing from that, Myanmar’s re-integration with the‘outside world’has been as rapid as it is welcomed. A series of reforms were initiated and a seeming breakthrough in relations with the political opposition took place. A development that illustrated this process significantly was Myanmar’s assumption of the ASEAN chair this year.

But there is still some way to go. As much as re-integration is overdue and is to be lauded, its effects upon the country are not always uniformly positive. These impacts are not being addressed satisfactorily, if at all.

There had been an earlier, momentous integration with the international community for Myanmar, the Kingdom of Burma as it had been called in those days.

It had been an integration on another’s terms – that of external, colonial powers: mainly the British Empire.

The European empires had been called vehicles of the first wave of globalization. It can be said that Burma was inducted into this wave in three stages coinciding with the three Anglo-Burmese Wars.

This incorporation included the imposition of global capitalism onto the country, with all its baggage and consequences.

There were similarities and differences in which colonized peoples responded to this political, cultural and economic subjugation. Myanmar’s opposition manifested itself in nationalism with Buddhist overtones, and there was a strong dose of the Left, ranging from Fabian socialism to overt Trotskyism.

A transform of nationalism persists to this day.

Following independence in 1948, Burma entered the family of nations as a sovereign state and followed a foreign policy of neutrality and non-alignment. The country enjoyed a certain status, as one of the original leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement and progenitors of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. This role in the region and international community came to an end unilaterally with the military coup of 1962.

For all the bloodshed and the brutal repression by yet another military junta that followed for two decades, there was some relief in that the economy was“liberalized”piecemeal. But the most significant consequence was that the military government, and the country for good measure, were ostracized – this time by much of the international community. For the common people in Myanmar, it was like being subjected to severe blows from both their own government and then the outside world. The account of this era represents a sad, dreary and sordid chapter in the country’s history. Some elements and interests, domestic and international, did prosper, some of them exceedingly well.

Therefore, when the November 2010 multi-party elections led to a semielected, party-civilian government, there was an audible sigh of relief and an atmosphere of hope and expectancy that lasted for a year or so. The dominant view and discourse is that the opening up is for the good, and that more trade, investment and tourism are to be welcomed.

There is no denying this, if it is done with care and in the people’s interests.

When arrangements like free trade areas and globalization first appeared, they were cast in a very positive light and regarded as the wave of the future. But when looked at more closely and in detail, and set against specific national and subnational contexts, a quite different reality emerged. There is considerable rethinking going on now.

For all the bloodshed and the brutal repression by yet another military junta that followed for two decades, there was some relief in that the economy was“liberalized”piecemeal. But the most significant consequence was that the military government, and the country for good measure, were ostracized – this time by much of the international community. For the common people in Myanmar, it was like being subjected to severe blows from both their own government and then the outside world. The account of this era represents a sad, dreary and sordid chapter in the country’s history. Some elements and interests, domestic and international, did prosper, some of them exceedingly well.

Therefore, when the November 2010 multi-party elections led to a semielected, party-civilian government, there was an audible sigh of relief and an atmosphere of hope and expectancy that lasted for a year or so. The dominant view and discourse is that the opening up is for the good, and that more trade, investment and tourism are to be welcomed. There is no denying this, if it is done with care and in the people’s interests. When arrangements like free trade areas and globalization first appeared, they were cast in a very positive light and regarded as the wave of the future. But when looked at more closely and in detail, and set against specific national and sub-national contexts, a quite different reality emerged. There is considerable re-thinking going on now.

Myanmar is well on its way into the country’s second agrarian

transformation. The newly formed military-led civilian government that took office earlier this decade, in cooperation with global international finance institutions and the international development aid industry, has begun to lay down the foundations for a neoliberal economic order…Land has become Burma’s must trumpedup commodity recently put on sale to the international investment community, advertised as Asia’s final frontier.

Other land-related laws, such as the Special Economic Zone Law and Foreign Investment Law, soon followed, all of which were engineered to reorient the legal landscape in such a way that land use, access and rights are taken away from smallholder farmers and handed over to the domestic and international private sector. These laws signify a tremendous turning point in Myanmar’s political economy that has not gone unnoticed. Instead of guns and fear of the military to dispossess farmers of their land, the rule of law has become the newest repertoire of land grab weapons to disenfranchise farmers, now the country’s most attractive

wealth-generating asset.

Another emerging form of smallholder dispossession, which is more sinister in design by being cast as being pro-poor smallholder development, is integrating farmers into global agricultural commodity supply chains. Western governments and aid agencies are bankrolling the Myanmar government’s land policy reform and development process to ensure increased land tenure security for the explicit purpose of politically and economically enabling smallholders’production to be inserted into global supply chains.

It is now possible for domestic political players – individuals and organizations to have formal relationships with similar entities abroad. A number of elements in foreign countries ,state and non-state alike ,have their own agendas for Myanmar and some of them are actively and overtly pushing these.

It was said that for many years, Myanmar’s economic development was held hostage to politics. But at the same time the political economy that we witness today was steadily being built. Now we have to wonder and worry about how much the economy will affect domestic politics. It has to be kept in mind that Myanmar politics is frail and divided, and therefore very vulnerable.

Foreign interference in a country’s domestic politics is generally prohibited by law and regarded as immoral and something to be eschewed. However this is a rule that is honoured more in the breach than in the observance. Myanmar has weak state capacity and legal enforcement, coupled with resource wealth and high geopolitical value.

In Myanmar’s new democratic setting, where are these decisions made? Is it an open and inclusive process? Are there policy debates?