A Study of Transnational and Human Security in Shan State, Myanmar: A Critical Security Perspective

• Main Authors: Katherine Jane Clague, 辛心
• Other Authors: Juo-yu Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/24581285165865505195

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 東南亞研究所碩士班 === 98 === A new generation of trans-national security threats facing us in this Globalised era are borderless in nature; emerging from a remapping of the globe along unipolar lines following the end of the cold war, the illegal drug trade for example has gradually developed into a globalised industry, and the production of this trade has orientated itself towards the territory of so called failed states or economically and geopolitically marginalised areas. The situation in the Shan State, Myanmar, is an exaggerated version of this, as the country’s chronic drug trade has not only deepened and diversified but also led to the emergence of a string of other non-traditional security threats all fuelled by the characteristic poverty and marginalisation of this problem area. The complex connection between this new generation of security threats on the one side and failed or marginalized states on the other is not after all a coincidence but rather an indication of the deep-seated structural problems laying often dormant within the World political and economic system (UN 2000c:11 Bhattacharyya 2005: 92), revealing a deep and undeniable link between security and poverty. In recent years many of these human centred, poverty fuelled security threats have been defined in international security literature as part of a human security discourse. However, despite the fact that trans-national and human security are both part of this new non-traditional security discourse, they are in reality drastically different in terms of motivation and referent object for their securitization. With the Welsh School of Critical Security Studies (CSS) as its theoretical base, this thesis argues that any discussion of constructing new security measures at a localized level should be contingent on the deconstructing of the top-down hegemony which currently exists in mainstream security discourse. By stepping out of the given local and global framework, this critical project has sought out the roots of insecurity in the geopolitical historical context of Myanmar’s Shan States: the deep-seated conflict existing between the indigenous collective images of the region and the modern shared inter-subjective ideas which have become the ‘reality’ of the realist school of security studies. Following this process of deconstruction, this paper analyzes two attempts at an international level to reconstruct security measures for addressing trans-national security threats in the light of their roots in poverty and underdevelopment: the drug trade and HIV/AIDS. Through probing into the counterproductive effects of realist informed measures and policies, formulated in response to the emergence of these trans-national security threats, it becomes evident that only by first deepening the security discourse to include human-centred means with emancipatory ends, can policymakers and actors begin to address the multiple sources of insecurity threatening the Shan State which have been highlighted by the broadening of security to include new non-traditional issues. Finally this thesis discusses the potential of mainstreaming human security as a future direction for policymakers and security actors alike. Emphasising the dual advantages of this approach in its potential to improve the human security situation in the region and in turn reduce the amount of trans-national threats emerging from its borders, while at the same time working to restore both the Shan State and Myanmar to their respective political communities through a process of communicative action; while through the process of promoting cooperation and interaction between national and local governments and civil society within Myanmar, taking the first tentative step in establishing a bottom-up political community for the future.