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A striking new analysis of Myanmar's court system, revealing how the rule of law is 'lexically present but semantically absent'.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. How law and order opposes the rule of law; 2. Ordering law in the colony; 3. Reordering law in the postcolony; 4. Subsuming law to order; 5. Embodying the law and order ideal; 6. Performing order, making money; 7. Through disorder, law and order; 8. Speaking up for the rule of law; 9. Against quietude; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Nick Cheesman is a Research Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University, Canberra, where he studied for a PhD. In 2013 his dissertation, on the politics of law and order in Myanmar, won the university medal, the J. G. Crawford Prize; and, the President's Prize of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. Before joining the Australian National University he worked in Hong Kong with the Asian Legal Resource Centre, a regional research and advocacy organisation. Earlier he convened a people's tribunal on militarisation in Myanmar, for a Thailand-based non-profit group. He also lived and worked in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Myanmar for a number of years. He teaches courses in politics and security, and co-convenes the Myanmar/Burma Update conferences at the Australian National University. His work has appeared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, and edited books. This is his first monograph.
Summary
Empirically grounded in both Burmese and English sources, this book offers the first major study of the contemporary court system in Myanmar. Nick Cheesman calls upon legal and political theory to explain how and why institutions animated by a concern for law and order oppose the rule of law.
