How do the internal politics of rebel movements drive wider dynamics of war and peace in Myanmar's changing borderlands?

The event launches David Brenner's new book Rebel Politics: A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar’s Borderlands (Cornell University Press, 2019) with a roundtable discussion on the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar, one of the most entrenched armed conflicts in the world.

Based on long-term research inside the Kachin and Karen rebellions, Rebel Politics analyses the relations between rebel leaders, their rank-and-file, and local communities in the context of political and geopolitical transformations in Myanmar’s borderlands. Using ethnographic methods and social theory, Rebel Politics provides an insight into the hidden social dynamics and everyday practices of political violence, ethnic conflict and rebel governance. In doing so, the book explains how revolutionary elites capture and lose legitimacy within their own movements and how the internal politics of rebel movements drive wider dynamics of war and peace.

The book launch will feature a roundtable discussion with David Brenner, Alicia de la Cour Venning, Jurgen Haacke, Kai Htang Lashi, Martin Smith. The roundtable will be chaired by William A. Callahan.

David Brenner (@DavBrenner) is Lecturer in International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work explores the politics of conflict, (in)security and development. He is an alumnus of LSE’s International Relations Department, where he did his PhD.

Alicia de la Cour Venning (@avdelacour) is a researcher at the International State Crime Initiative in the School of Law at Queen Mary’s, University of London. Her PhD thesis explores how armed groups in Myanmar engage with international humanitarian law.

Jürgen Haacke is Associate Professor of International Relations at LSE. His publications include ASEAN’s Diplomatic and Security Culture: Origins, Development, and Prospects and Myanmar’s Foreign Policy: Domestic Influences and International Implications.

Kai Htang Lashi is the spokesperson on Foreign Affairs for the Kachin National Organisation (KNO), founded by exile Kachin revolutionaries. The KNO forms a crucial link between the Kachin Diaspora and armed resistance in Myanmar.

Martin Smith is senior advisor to the Transnational Institute. He is author of Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, Ethnic Groups in Burma: Development, Democracy and Human Rights, and State of Strife: The Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict in Burma.

William A. Callahan (@Bill_Callahan1) is Professor of International Relations at LSE. He is an expert in the international relations of China and Asia. He is also a scholar of visual international politics. His books include China: The Pessoptimist Nation and Sensible Politics: Visualizing International Relations.

The Department of International Relations (@LSEIRDept) is now in its 92nd year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world.  

Suggested hashtag for this event: #LSERebelPolitics