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Land grabs demonstrate disconnect between development discourse and practice:
"The historical weight of the political culture of development in Burma – now more commonly referred to as Myanmar – must not be discounted during the democracy-neoliberal reform era. National development discourse and practice in Myanmar has combined elements from monarchical patronage and military authoritarianism after decades of ruling military dictatorships where the military-state ‘knows best’ for its people. If ‘development’, a very loaded and ambiguous term, is viewed as being borne out of the crucible of culture and politics, then it should come as no surprise that national development practice in Myanmar has not yet followed the newly-established government’s declarations of ’disciplined democracy’ and pro-poor, grassroots development approaches.
The former dictator Senior General Than Shwe implemented his final steps in the country’s long road map to ‘disciplined democracy’ by making U Thein Sein (himself a former regional military commander) in March 2011 the country’s first non-interim civilian president in five decades. The new military-backed President is viewed as a moderate reformist leader who has been tasked to undertake many neoliberal reforms, such as privatizing the state’s stronghold over the economy and deregulating the heavily censored media. In line with democratic ideals, the President and his top aides routinely espouse the hallmark virtues of grassroots voices, bottom-up development and transparency and accountability to its citizens.
But despite the President’s western-cultural development rhetoric, Myanmar’s government continues to fall back upon the familiar top-down authoritarian approaches to development long espoused by Myanmar’s military regime that ruled the country as a dictatorship since 1962. Meanwhile, billions of dollars of western-aligned development aid and international finance flood into Yangon and Naypyitaw to supposedly support this realignment of Myanmar’s political economy and culture, but in reality is more an effort to buy geopolitical patronage.
Reflections on which different development discourses have the higher moral ground are not the intention of this critical analysis, however. Rather, this commentary articulates the growing disconnect between on-the-ground realities of national development interventions and practices in Myanmar versus the presidential and western development industries repeated proclamations of the virtues of grassroots, pro-poor development. President U Thein Sein’s first presidential speech in 2011, various government officials’ welcoming addresses at the World Economic Forum in Naypyitaw in 2013, and the long-list of high-profile national development conferences held in Myanmar have gained acclaim from the western development community for praising the virtues of bottom-up, pro-poor national development and economic growth...
