Myanmar’s Peace Process and the Role of Middle Power States (Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series) - Softcover

Roy, Chiraag

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032157178 ISBN 13: 9781032157177

Publisher: Routledge, 2024

Synopsis

This book explores middle power engagement in peace processes through the cases of Australian, Japanese and Norwegian engagement in Myanmar’s peace process, a core event in Myanmar’s contemporary recent political history.

The book asks to what extent, and how, middle powers have engaged in Myanmar’s peace process as a form of peacemaking entrepreneurship. Underpinning this study is a concern for the lack of clarity surrounding the middle power concept. Traditional conceptions of middle powers, steeped in idealist thinking, locate such states as capable peacemakers, without elucidating the motivations that drive middle powers to peacemaking beyond mere status seeking. Drawing on recent fieldwork interviews from within Myanmar as well as political economy literature, the author scrutinises this notion while concomitantly offering an incisive analysis of Myanmar’s peace process. Based on the Myanmar context, the book argues that middle powers can better be conceptualised as "peace-making entrepreneurs," as actors that use peacemaking as an instrumental tool to cement their status and craft an image, which they can then trade upon to secure additional, namely, commercial, benefits. Significantly, this notion of peacemaking entrepreneurship problematises core theoretical assumptions of middle powers as capable peacemakers, presenting implications for future scholarship on middle powers.

A timely addition as Myanmar continues to grapple with its own future, the book is located within the fields of International Relations and Development Studies. It will be of interest to researchers studying Asian Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, and Myanmar Politics.

About this title

About the Author

Chiraag Roy is an International Relations scholar with research interests in International Relations theory, Asia-Pacific politics, Australian foreign policy and middle power theory.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032157178
• ISBN 13: 9781032157177
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 162