The Soil to Sow the Fourth ‘D’ in Burma

By Tettoe Aung

Following Mrs Hillary Clinton’s visit to Asia in February this year soon after her appointment as the Secretary of State for President Barack Obama’s administration, Stephen Blake, the Director of the Office for Mainland Southeast Asia at the State Department visited Burma as part of the tour of five countries in the region. Mr Blake met with the Burmese foreign minister, U Nyan Win, and other government officials, in the junta’s new and remote capital of Naypyidaw.

Mr Blake’s visit to Burma was he first to visit Naypyidaw since the ruling generals moved the government to the new capital from Yangon since 2005. Since his visit took place amid a review of the United States policy toward Burma, questions were asked whether it was a shift in the US policy toward the Burma. The State Department did not provide further details of Mr Blake’s meeting with the junta officials but insisted that it did not reflect any shift in policy even though it admitted that it is looking at new ways to sway the entrenched military government.

Thinking like a gardener, if I were to sow seeds the condition of soil and prevailing climate will be crucial for the seeds to germinate and grow. Mrs Clinton choice of Asia and the Pacific Rim as her first foreign trip, her highlight of every tangible ways in emphasising that the Obama’s administration hopes to be different from its predecessor when it comes to supporting democracy abroad. She will prepare the soil and the climate to sow.

Mrs Clinton outlined the US foreign Policy based on the “Three D’s” of defence, diplomacy and development. To many, she seems to have deliberately left the fourth ‘D’ democracy out making it clear that the new Obama’s administration, unlike his predecessor George W Bush, will be more about changing how the United States goes about supporting democracy abroad than about what emphasis it places on democracy relative to other interests. Obama rarely spoke about the topic while campaigning and has made little mention of it since becoming President. Hillary touched on the subject at a glance during her Senate confirmation hearings.

In an empirical study conducted by Hans Stockton, Uk Heo and Kwang H. Ro on “Factors Affecting Democratic Installation in Developing Countries” (Asian Perspective, Vol.22, No.3, 1998, pp.207-222) they have found that it is the economic prosperity foremost and not social or international factor that helps democratic installation in a country. In a way, democracy emerges successfully only as a capstone to other social and economic achievements.

Many in the West have assumed that growth in the economy of a country will be followed by political reform. It was predicted that economic liberalisation will usher in political liberalisation and eventually led to democracy. However, as Robert D Kaplan pointed out in his essay, “Was Democracy Just a Moment? (The Atlantic, December 1997), “Hitler and Mussolini each came to power through democracy. Democracies do not always make societies more civil – but they do always mercilessly expose the health of the societies in which they operate.” As it was pointed out that the crucial element is not the name the system goes by but how the system actually works.

Until recently, many Western policy-makers and developmental experts have assumed that, like the empirical study done by Hans Stockton and his colleagues, political liberalisation basically tracks the rate of economic growth with only a slight lag. Seymour Martin Lipset, the eminent sociologist and political scientist, was the thinker who popularised the notion that economic growth fosters democratisation by increasing the size of the educated middle class.

However, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, “Development and Democracy” (September/October 2005) pointed out that people in countries like China and Russia, “Although it remains true that among already established democracies, a high per capita income contributes to stability, the growing number of affluent authoritarian states suggest that greater wealth alone does not automatically lead to greater political freedom. Authoritarian regimes around the world are showing that they can reap the benefits of economic development while evading any pressure to relax their political control.”

When Lipset published his findings he cautioned that the success of the process was not guaranteed it depended on a very particular set of circumstances. His cautionary note seems to have been forgotten. Since autocratic states are not passive observers of political change, especially like regimes in China and Burma, whose survival depended on the status quo, not only set the rule of the game but rig them as well to suit their interests. As Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs mentioned in their essay, the autocratic regimes enjoy a marked advantage over the average citizen in their ability to shape institutions and political events they may be able to postpone democratisation while continuing to achieve economic growth.

On simple observation, neither the soil for sowing the fourth D nor the preparation of the soil seems right for prospective democratic change. The climate - prevailing political environment of the new Obama’s administration, China’s apparent change of its support on Burma, the need for all countries in a more ‘bound-together’ or ‘interdependent’ world, and President Obama’s basic approach to addressing conflictive issues of all types in non-confrontational, measured, yet determined pursuit of balanced solutions – seems right to might bear fruit for Burma’s democratic change after all.

Remarks: Author is a former diplomat before 1988