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.

November 2010 sees the first elections in Myanmar/Burma since 1990, to be held as the culmination of the military regime's 'Road Map for Democracy' The conditions under which the elections are being held are far from favourable, although the laws and procedures under which they will be conducted have been in place for seven months and quite widely publicized. Political controls remain repressive, freedom of expression and assembly does not exist, and international access is restricted by government controls as well as sanctions. While the elections represent a turning point for Myanmar/Burma, the lead-up period has not been marked by many notable improvements in the way the country is governed or in the reforming impact of international assistance programmes. Presenters at the Australian National University 2009 Myanmar/Burma Update conference examined these questions and more. Leading experts from the United States, Japan, France, and Australia as well as from Myanmar/Burma have conributed to this collection of papers from the Conference.

With the world watching closely, Myanmar began a process of political, administrative and institutional transition from 30 January 2011. After convening the parliament, elected in November 2010, the former military regime transferred power to a new government headed by former Prime Minister (and retired general), U Thein Sein. With parliamentary processes restored in Myanmar's new capital of Naypyitaw, Thein Sein's government announced a wide-ranging reform agenda, and began releasing political prisoners and easing press censorship. Pivotal meetings between Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi led to amendment of the Election Law and the National League for Democracy contesting by-elections in April 2012. The 2011 Myanmar/Burma update conference considered the openings offered by these political changes and media reforms and the potential opportunities for international assistance. Obstacles covered include impediments to the rule of law, the continuation of human rights abuses, the impunity of the Army, and the failure to end ethnic insurgency.

Is Myanmar (Burma) democratizing, or is it moving towards a new form of authoritarianism, perhaps one more consonant with other contemporary authoritarian regimes in Asia? Coming at a critical time, and one of growing interest in this Southeast Asian country among researchers and policy-makers, Debating Democratization in Myanmar addresses this complex question from a range of disciplinary and professional perspectives. Chapters by leading international scholars and practitioners, activists and politicians from Myanmar and around the world cover political and economic updates, as well as the problems of democratization; the re-engagement of democratic activists and exiles in domestic affairs; the new parliament, the electoral system, and everyday politics; prospects for the economy; ethnic cooperation, contestation and conflict; the role of the army and police forces; and conditions for women. Together they constitute an empirically deep and analytically rich source of readable and relevant material for anyone keen to obtain a greater understanding of what is happening in Myanmar today, and why.

Myanmar's recovery from half a century of military rule has been fraught. As in other religiously, culturally and linguistically heterogeneous countries where a dictatorship has loosened a tight grip, people there have wanted for democratic institutions to express and manage conflict. Under these circumstances, mundane and seemingly apolitical events sometimes unfold into moments of intense violence. Interpreting Communal Violence in Myanmar addresses one such violent chapter in Myanmar's recent past: the communal violence that shook the country between 2012 and 2014. The violence, most of it involving Buddhists attacking Muslims, ranged from localised, fleeting, inter-group melees, to large scale, apparently well-organised, state-supported killing and destruction of property of a targeted community, running over a number of days. The book's seven chapters comprise a response to the violence by a group of Myanmar and Southeast Asia experts. Their contributions trace the histories and contemporary features of the violence, and the legal and political arrangements that made it possible. Their interpretations, while specific to Myanmar, also contribute to broader debate about the characteristics, causes and consequences of communal violence generally. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Contemporary Asia.

Myanmar's recovery from half a century of military rule has been fraught. As in other religiously, culturally and linguistically heterogeneous countries where a dictatorship has loosened a tight grip, people there have wanted for democratic institutions to express and manage conflict. Under these circumstances, mundane and seemingly apolitical events sometimes unfold into moments of intense violence. Interpreting Communal Violence in Myanmar addresses one such violent chapter in Myanmar's recent past: the communal violence that shook the country between 2012 and 2014. The violence, most of it involving Buddhists attacking Muslims, ranged from localised, fleeting, inter-group melees, to large scale, apparently well-organised, state-supported killing and destruction of property of a targeted community, running over a number of days. The book's seven chapters comprise a response to the violence by a group of Myanmar and Southeast Asia experts. Their contributions trace the histories and contemporary features of the violence, and the legal and political arrangements that made it possible. Their interpretations, while specific to Myanmar, also contribute to broader debate about the characteristics, causes and consequences of communal violence generally. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Contemporary Asia.

The rule of law is a political ideal today endorsed and promoted worldwide. Or is it? In a significant contribution to the field, Nick Cheesman argues that Myanmar is a country in which the rule of law is 'lexically present but semantically absent'. Charting ideas and practices from British colonial rule through military dictatorship to the present day, Cheesman calls upon political and legal theory to explain how and why institutions animated by a concern for law and order oppose the rule of law. Empirically grounded in both Burmese and English sources, including criminal trial records and wide ranging official documents, Opposing the Rule of Law offers the first significant study of courts in contemporary Myanmar. It sheds new light on the politics of courts during dark times and sharply illuminates the tension between the demand for law and the imperatives of order.

The rule of law is a political ideal today endorsed and promoted worldwide. Or is it? In a significant contribution to the field, Nick Cheesman argues that Myanmar is a country in which the rule of law is 'lexically present but semantically absent'. Charting ideas and practices from British colonial rule through military dictatorship to the present day, Cheesman calls upon political and legal theory to explain how and why institutions animated by a concern for law and order oppose the rule of law. Empirically grounded in both Burmese and English sources, including criminal trial records and wide ranging official documents, Opposing the Rule of Law offers the first significant study of courts in contemporary Myanmar. It sheds new light on the politics of courts during dark times and sharply illuminates the tension between the demand for law and the imperatives of order.