The State in Myanmar [Paperback]

I've been studying Burma in some fashion or another for almost a decade now, yet I had always neglected to read Robert Taylor's classic The State in Burma. Now, 20 years later, Taylor updated the book (rebranding it The State in Myanmar), providing me with a great excuse to read it.

First of all, it's important to explain what this book is not. It is not a popular history of Burma - for that I would recommend Thant Myunt-U's excellent The River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma. Nor is it even a general history - again, for that purpose refer to Michael Charney's A History of Modern Burma. This is also not a book about human rights abuses, society, or even politics generally in Burma. Some critics of Taylor's earlier work blamed him for supposedly supporting the military and not pointing out the human rights abuses (for an example of this type of criticism, see David Scott Mathieson's review of the book in a recent issue of the Irrawaddy magazine).

Rather, Taylor's book, as he discusses in his introduction, is a study of the state as an institution in Burma from precolonial times to the present. Despite some tangents, he sticks to this theme fairly well, discussing the structures, stakeholders, and revenues of the state in six time periods: 1) precolonial state, 2) rationalization under the British (1825-1942), 3) colonial politics (1886-1942), 4) displacement of the state under the democratic era (1942-62), 5) the Ne Win socialist regimes (1962-88), and 6) the SLORC/SPDC (1988-2008).

The book begins rather poorly in my opinion, relying too much on abstractions and generalities. This was certainly no history of "names, dates, or places." Rather, the book seems like a tour of the Burmese state from 10,000 feet in the air. Taylor barely stops to mention important leaders in the precolonial state (I don't recall him mentioning Anawratha, Bagyidaw, or Bodawpaya at all). I understand that part of this may be the lack of sources on precolonial Burma, but it would have been helpful for the book to descend from the clouds and actually examine the specific features of the state during different time periods. I thought in many places details would have been more effective than repeating certain buzzwords and clichés in Southeast Asian Studies, such as the oft-repeated phrase "patron-client relationships." Most Southeast Asianists know that patron-client relationships dominate political interactions in the state, but it would have been much more useful to explain what that means in the Burmese state. At some points, Taylor uses general phrases with little meaning, such as the "late early modern" period (which is in fact an oxymoron). I would almost recommend skipping Taylor's discussion of precolonial Burma and instead reading Thant Myint-U's The Making of Modern Burma, an excellent history of the last Burmese dynasty.

Hidden within this book are some great analytical gems about Burma, particularly when it comes to financing the state. One observation of the precolonial state, still relevant today, is that the kings hindered private enterprise to prevent the rise of competing centers of wealth or power. He also argues that the dominance of Indian moneylenders (chettiars) before World War II compromised Burmese politicians and allowed the rise of radical nationalists such as Aung San. Taylor also cites the desperate lack of revenue as the underlying cause of the Burma Socialist Programme Party's collapse.

Taylor's analysis becomes much sharper as the book progresses, and I think he does a particularly good job with the democratic and socialist eras. In fact, his discussion of those two eras is probably some of the best I've read anywhere. He covers some of the major changes in the SLORC/SPDC era in 100 pages he added to the original The State in Burma. Those sections do a good job revealing the internal palace politics, but leave much to be desired.

Despite the wide sweep of the book, it is quite scholarly and constantly refers to events or names in Burmese history that might be unfamiliar to the uninitiated (if you want a basic "idiot's guide" to Burma, check out David Steinberg's Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know). I think the book would definitely have been aided by org charts of state institutions and more lists of key historical figures (although he fortunately includes more lists of top military officials in the SLORC/SPDC periods).

A more serious problem was the lack of any analytical argument or theory. The original version of the book claimed that the BSPP state under the 1974 constitution represented a reversion to "natural" precolonial dynamics. However, that book is probably remembered more for its flawed prediction that the BSPP state was stable and healthy, just one year before it collapsed in the face of the 1988 protests. In this new edition, Taylor seems reluctant to make any strong argument about the state at all, verging more toward a descriptive tome. While certainly useful, I would have appreciated perhaps greater insights. He seems on the verge of doing this near the very end, when he claims that the SPDC state has become very much the BSPP near the end of its reign, but he never expands upon this. I found myself wanting to learn more about this intriguing comparison and why Taylor thought they were so similar. Alas, he mentions this more as an offhand comment than a starting point for discussion.

As for the all important issue of political bias... Taylor is certainly not sympathetic toward the prodemocracy movement, but I don't think that undermines the book too much. He is generally amoral in his analysis, not pro-military. He does point out when the military has managed state affairs incompetently, but he's not very good at navigating political sensitivities. For example, although most scholars seem to use the term "Burma" to describe events before 1988 and "Myanmar" for after 1988 (for example, see David Steinberg's Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar), Taylor rebrands the country "Myanmar," even going so far as to (awkwardly) refer to the Myanmar Socialist Programme Party. Furthermore, in taking such a stratospheric view of politics, Taylor misses some important nuances. For example, Christina Fink, in a sociological, on-the-ground approach in Living Silence in Burma: Surviving under Military Rule, provides several anecdotes about how citizens were forced to participate in such events either against their will or in return for patronage.

Despite these issues, Taylor's book remains one of the more insightful scholarly accounts of Myanmar politics. Again, if you are interested in other aspects of Burma, or a popular history, this book might not be for you. However, if you are already familiar with Burmese history and want to gain a deeper understanding, then at its best The State in Myanmar does exactly that.

Assumes that the bigger the state, the better.

Off on wrong foot and stays that way throughout.

Kyi May Kaung