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| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
167626
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| Summary/Abstract |
State control of land plays a critical role in producing land dispossession throughout the Global South. In Myanmar, the state’s approach towards territorial expansion has driven the country’s system of land governance, resulting in widespread and systemic land grabbing. This article investigates ongoing land governance reforms as key terrains for contesting such abuses of power. Employing a relational land governance approach, we view reform processes as shaped by changing power-laden social relations among government, civil society, and international donor actors. Legal and regulatory reforms in Myanmar potentially act as sites of meaningful social change but in practice tend to maintain significant limitations in altering governance dynamics. Civil society organizations and their alliances in Myanmar have played an important role in opening up policy processes to a broader group of political actors. Yet, policies and legal frameworks still are often captured by elite actors, becoming trapped in path dependent power relations.
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| 2 |
ID:
174813
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| Summary/Abstract |
Increasing demands for energy to boost the Mekong economies have attracted the keen interest of riparian countries for hydropower development. This is evidenced by extensive investment in hydropower projects across the region over the last few decades. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders, including officials from Ministry of Energy and Mines, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, private sector actors, civil society organisations and academics, as well as secondary data from public and policy resources, this paper aims to examine how the government of Laos' (GoL) decisions in hydropower development are influenced by regional energy dynamics, and how these shape the country's future energy development. The paper argues that the GoL's decisions on hydropower development are highly dilemmatic, given the current limited institutional capacity in hydropower governance and the accelerating evolution of alternative energy in neighbouring countries. While uncertainty in power markets is recognised, this places greater pressure on new hydropower projects as to how much power could be sufficiently produced and exported. The paper calls for GoL's policy considerations on the development and planning of alternative energy to secure the sustainable and equitable use of water resources as stipulated in the 1995 Mekong Agreement.
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| 3 |
ID:
153419
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| Summary/Abstract |
Regional economic integration has become the dominant development pathway promoted, endorsed, and followed by many developing country governments in South East Asia and globally. Focusing on hydropower development, this article shows how forces of globalization manifested in the Myanmar government’s strategies to promote economic growth are shaping the Salween River basin’s development trajectory. Contesting the general belief that economic development would help the country’s transition to full democracy and achieve peace, it illustrates how hydropower development plans in the basin are closely interlinked with human rights issues. Well known for its long histories of violent conflict involving the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups in various states, hydropower development in the Salween River is not only linked to the ongoing peace process in Myanmar but could also have direct implications on the actual significance of the process. Despite the signing of nationwide ceasefire agreements in 2012, hydropower dam projects could contribute to and trigger reoccurrences of violent armed conflict. Recognizing this conflict-prone and politically fragile condition as the main characteristics of Salween water governance is essential if we are to strive for sustainable and just development.
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| 4 |
ID:
174830
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| Summary/Abstract |
Viewing the Salween River as a transboundary commons, this paper illustrates how diverse state and non‐state actors and institutions in hybrid and multi‐scaled networks have influenced water governance in general, and large dam decision‐making processes in particular. Putting power relations at the centre of this analysis and drawing on the conceptual lenses of hybrid governance and critical institutionalism, we show the complexity of the fragmented processes through which decisions have been arrived at, and their implications. In the context of highly asymmetrical power relations throughout the basin, and the absence of an intergovernmental agreement to date, we argue that hybrid networks of state and non‐state actors could be strategically engaged to connect parallel and fragmented decision‐making landscapes with a goal of inclusively institutionalising the transboundary commons and maintaining connected local commons throughout the basin, foregrounding a concern for ecological and social justice.
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