Promoting Human Rights in Burma: A Critique of Western Sanctions Policy

Pedersen, Morten B.

ISBN 10: 0742555593 / ISBN 13: 9780742555594

Published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2007

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9780742555594

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Promoting Human Rights in Burma: A Critique of Western Sanctions Policy
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0742555593
• ISBN 13: 9780742555594
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Since 1988, when Burma's military rulers crushed a popular uprising, Western governments have promoted democracy as a panacea for the country's manifold development problems, from ethnic conflict to weak governance, human rights abuses, and deep-rooted, structural poverty. Years of escalating censure and sanctions, however, have left the military firmly entrenched in power, the opposition marginalized, and the general population suffering from deepening poverty. In the first book-length study of Western human rights policy in Burma, Morten B. Pedersen argues that Western democracy rhetoric has not supplied the solution to these problems. Each year, Burma's human and natural resources are further eroding, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is mounting, and the prospect of turning the situation around is becoming less and less likely. Based on extensive field research, Promoting Human Rights in Burma proposes an alternative model of "critical engagement" that emphasizes more pragmatic efforts to help bring a deeply divided society together and promote socioeconomic development as the basis for longer-term political change. Although the focus is squarely on Burma, the fallacies in Western policy thinking that this case study reveals, as well as the alternative policy framework it offers, have wider relevance for other poor, conflict-ridden countries on the periphery of the global political and economic system.

About the Author

Thant Myint-U, formerly a diplomat with the United Nations, now lives and writes in Bangkok, travelling from there to Burma, India, and China. He is the author of a personal history of Burma, The River of Lost Footsteps (FSG, 2006).