From comparative perspective, this book explores the dynamics of child soldiering on the Myanmar-China border (i.e., Kachin and Shan States of Myanmar). At the same time, this book examines the structural factors and specific relationships between child soldiers, which have impacts on child soldiering. This book reveals that Myanmar has limited power to reduce child soldiering on the Myanmar-China border, and there is no optimal solution for reducing child soldiering in the near future. Instead, the book introduces the “transnational public-private partnership” approach as a “second best” solution and proposes suitable countermeasures for all the stakeholders.

Humanitarians operate on the frontlines of today’s armed conflicts, where they regularly negotiate to provide assistance and to protect vulnerable civilians. This book explores this unique and under-researched field of humanitarian negotiation. It details the challenges faced by humanitarians negotiating with armed groups in Yemen, Myanmar, and elsewhere, arguing that humanitarians typically negotiate from a position of weakness. It also explores some of the tactics and strategies they use to overcome this power asymmetry to reach more favorable agreements. The author applies these findings to broader negotiation scholarship and investigates the implications of this research for the field and practice of humanitarianism. This book also demonstrates how non-state actors – both humanitarians and armed groups – have become increasingly potent diplomatic actors. It challenges traditional state-centric approaches to diplomacy and argues that non-state actors constitute an increasingly crucial vector through which international relations are replicated and reconstituted during contemporary armed conflict. Only by accepting these changes to the nature of diplomacy itself can the causes, symptoms, and solutions to armed conflict be better managed. This book will be of interest to scholars concerned with conflict resolution, negotiation, and mediation, as well as to humanitarian practitioners themselves.

This book explores how children have been affected by armed conflict in the borderlands of Thailand, particularly in the region abutting the Thailand-Myanmar border, and in the most southern part of Thailand. The author argues that the Thai government has made great efforts to protect children from armed conflict in these borderlands. The author analyzes the obstacles facing the Thai government in protecting children from armed conflict in the borderlands, and advances alternative solutions for how the Thai government might better protect children from armed conflict in the foreseeable future. This book not only opens a window for future research on children affected by armed conflict in the borderlands of Thailand and beyond, but also contributes to the breadth of perspective and depth of expertise in related fields, such as studies of human insecurity. It is relevant to scholars, graduate students, and policymakers interested in the impact of armed conflict on children.

Stalemate reveals the history and contemporary politics of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's strongest insurgent army on Myanmar's border with China. This ethnographic tale recounts how a highland group, often dismissed as rebels or narcotraffickers, maintains a relational autonomy between two powerful lowland states. The Wa polity engages rather than evades these surrounding states, yet struggles to fit into their registers of sovereignty and statehood. Andrew Ong examines political culture among Wa elites and people, UWSA external relations, and capital flows with neighboring China, showing how Wa autonomy is enacted through careful navigation of complex borderland geopolitics and the shadow economy. He analyzes the seeming stalemate between the Myanmar state and the UWSA as one of tactical dissonance—adopting simultaneous postures of authority and subordination and creating disruptions and connections. Stalemate illuminates how seemingly ambiguous and disorderly practices of political signaling, economic regulation, and military governance produce relative stability, challenging our assumptions about state-like processes at the peripheries.

As Myanmar's military adjusts to life with its former opponents holding elected office, Conflict in Myanmar showcases innovative research by a rising generation of scholars, analysts and practitioners about the past five years of political transformation. Each of its seventeen chapters, from participants in the 2015 Myanmar Update conference held at the Australian National University, builds on theoretically informed, evidence-based research to grapple with significant questions about ongoing violence and political contention. The authors offer a variety of fresh views on the most intractable and controversial aspects of Myanmar's long-running civil wars, fractious politics and religious tensions. This latest volume in the Myanmar Update Series from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific continues and deepens a tradition of intense, critical engagement with political, economic and social questions that matter to both the inhabitants and neighbours of one of Southeast Asia's most complicated and fascinating countries.

This book examines civil society's peacebuilding role in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of climate change and the pursuit of environmental peace and justice in the Anthropocene. Five main research themes emerge from its 20 chapters: · The roles of environmental peacemaking, environmental justice, ecological education and eco-ethics in helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change · Peacebuilding by CSOs after violent conflicts, with particular reference to accountability, reconciliation and healing · CSO involvement in democratic processes and political transition after violent conflicts · Relationships between local CSOs and their foreign funders and the interactions between CSOs and the African Union's peace and security architecture. · The particular role of faith-based CSOs The book underlines the centrality of dialogue to African peacebuilding and the indigenous wisdom and philosophies on which it is based. Such wisdom will be a key resource in confronting the existential challenges of the Anthropocene. The book will be a significant resource for researchers, academics and policymakers concerned with the challenge of climate change, its interactions with armed conflict and the peacebuilding role of CSOs. · This pathbreaking book shows why peacebuilding analysis and efforts need to be urgently re-oriented towards the existential challenges of environmental peace and justice. · It explains the emerging conceptual frameworks which are needed for this new role. · It explains the critical role that CSOs - local and international - will play in implementing this new peacebuilding approach, with particular reference to sub- Saharan Africa.

Burma (Myanmar) is a Southeast Asian country that is emerging from crisis after more than a half century of hard-line military rule and cultural, diplomatic and economic isolation. With the dissolution of its military regime, the State Peace and Development Council, in 2011, a formally civilian but military-dominated constitutional government was inaugurated. By 2012, Burma’s president, retired General Thein Sein, had established a working relationship with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country’s pro-democracy movement since 1988, and after a 2012 by-election she and members of her opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), entered the new Union Parliament as legislators. However, even with the election victory of Daw Suu Kyi and the NLD in the General Election of November 2015, Burma faces daunting challenges: it is still one of the poorest countries in Southeast, fissured by longstanding ethnic conflicts that have made a nationwide peace agreement elusive and its people’s security and the environment are threatened by foreign economic exploitation. Religious discord is also widely evident, as Buddhist militants instigate violence against the country’s religious minorities, especially Muslims. Today Burma’s prospects are the most hopeful they have been for over half a century, as the country takes steps along the road to a more open society and economy. This edition of the Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar) encompasses not only current developments, but also Burma’s over 1,500 years-old recorded history and the most important features of its cultures, ethnicity, religions, society and economy. This is done through achronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.

This book presents the proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Intelligent Systems Applications in Multi-modal Information Analytics, held in Changzhou, China, on June 18–19, 2020. It provides comprehensive coverage of the latest advances and trends in information technology, science and engineering. It addresses a number of broad themes, including data mining, multi-modal informatics, agent-based and multi-agent systems for health and education informatics, which inspire the development of intelligent information technologies. The contributions cover a wide range of topics such as AI applications and innovations in health and education informatics; data and knowledge management; multi-modal application management; and web/social media mining for multi-modal informatics. Outlining promising future research directions, the book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and professionals, and a useful reference guide for newcomers to the field.

A unique survey of each country in the region. It includes an extensive collection of facts, statistics, analysis and directory information in one accessible volume.

This timely and accessible book is the first to provide a thorough analysis of the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar (Burma) in its historical, political and social context. The book identifies and articulates the principles of the Constitution through an in-depth analysis of legal and political processes and practises, particularly since the 1990s. The core argument of this book is that the 2008 Constitution is crucial to the establishment and maintenance of the military-state. The military-state promotes the leadership role of the military in governance based on a set of ideological commitments and a centralised form of organisation based on the concept of the Union. The book develops this argument by demonstrating how the process of constitution-making and the substance of the 2008 Constitution contribute to its lack of credibility and fuel demands for reform. The vision offered by the 2008 Constitution and its associated institutions has been the subject of fierce contestation, not least, for example, due to concerns over the militarisation of the state. This book is animated by debates over fundamental ideas such as the nature of democracy, the possibility of peace and federalism, the relationship between the executive and the legislature, relations between the Union government and sub-national governments, debates over judicial independence and the oversized role of the Tatmadaw (armed forces). Central to the future of the Constitution and the military-state is the role of the Tatmadaw, which will be a key determinant in any potential shift from the present highly centralised, partly-democratic Union to a federal or decentralised democratic system of governance.