2024, Vol. 6, Issue 1, Part D

Myanmar (Pre-1989 Burma) is a potpourri of diverse people joined artificially by history and politics resulting in a complex multi-ethnic, multi-religious society with ethnic divisions coinciding with geographical divisions and resultant core-periphery dynamics. Divisions existed in the pre-colonial state but the colonial rule magnified and politicized the ethnic divisions. The majority-minority division and its associated politics of assimilation and domination is thus an entrenched feature of the country. The paper will try to causally locate the failure of democratic experiments of the country in its complex plurality. It will also try to explore consociational democracy as a model for democratic governance in plural societies and whether the features associated with such model can be applied to solve the democratic dilemma of Myanmar.