In the period of social and political transformation that followed the election of President Thein Sein, ethnic politics remained a major preoccupation for the Myanmar government, ethnic peoples and the international community. Explaining the varieties of ethnic political interests that are emerging requires a new analytical framework in which the nascent electoral system is given adequate attention. This article argues that cooperation and contestation are now vying with conflict as primary drivers of ethnic politics. To account adequately for the interaction of these concepts, the article introduces various pieces of evidence concerning the different manifestations of ethnic political interests today. It describes an ambiguous situation in which the overall pattern of ethnic politics is changing rapidly. The challenge remains of fully reconciling Myanmar's diverse peoples and including them in one political system.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	ethnicity, civil war, legislatures, borderlands, Myanmar
Research Division:	Human Society
Research Group:	Political science
Research Field:	Government and politics of Asia and the Pacific
Objective Division:	Law, Politics and Community Services
Objective Group:	International relations
Objective Field:	International political economy (excl. international trade)
UTAS Author:	Farrelly, N (Professor Nicholas Farrelly)
ID Code:	145332
Year Published:	2014
Web of Science® Times Cited:	10
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Social Sciences
Deposited On:	2021-07-16
Last Modified:	2021-09-21
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