Author: Paul Chambers
Publisher: Nias Studies in Asian Topics
ISBN: 9788776942250
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"Although Southeast Asia has seen the emergence of civilian rule, the military continues to receive a large chunk of the national budget and, with significant assets and economic activities, often possesses enormous economic clout -- enhancing its political power while hindering democratization or civilian rule. The political economy of the military in less developed countries is thus a crucial subject area in terms of democratization. This study examines such "khaki capital" in seven Southeast Asian cases -- Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Each chapter analyses the historical evolution of khaki capital in the given country case; the role of internal and external factors (e.g. military unity and globalization) in this trajectory; and how the resulting equilibrium has affected civil-military relations. This work is important for understanding how and why military influence over parts of the economy in Southeast Asia has remained an impediment to achieving civilian control and democratization. Ultimately, this book tells the story of how militaries in Southeast Asia have benefited economically and the extent to which such gains have translated into the leveraging of political power." --
Author: Gerard McCarthy
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
ISBN: 9814843555
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
Military enterprises, ostensibly set up to feed and supply soldiers, were some of the earliest and largest Burmese commercial conglomerates, established in the 1950s. Union Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) are two profit-seeking military enterprises established by the military after the dissolution of the Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1988, which remain central players in Myanmar’s post-2011 economy. Military conglomerates are a major source of off-budget revenue for the military and a main employer of retired soldiers. Yet few veterans receive more than a small piece of the profits from UMEHL. The vast bulk of formal dividends instead disproportionately benefit higher ranking officers and institutions within the Tatmadaw. Military capitalism entrenches the autonomy of the Tatmadaw from civilian oversight. Despite this, obligatory or semi-coerced contributions from active-duty soldiers are a source of cash flow for UMEHL, effectively constituting a transfer from the government budget to the military’s off-budget entities. The most significant source of livelihoods support for most veterans is the service pension dispersed by the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoPF). Despite delivering suboptimal welfare outcomes for most soldiers and veterans while eroding the legitimacy of ceasefires, successive governments since 1988, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) administration, have entrenched military capitalism by encouraging commercial activities of armed groups that enter into ceasefire agreements. Extending military pensions already paid by the Ministry of Planning and Finance to retired members of armed groups could deliver a far more consistent and tangible “peace dividend” than the commercial extraction of resources from ceasefire areas. More balanced civil–military relations, and fairer social outcomes for military personnel, will rely on civilian-led state institutions delivering effective and substantive welfare support beyond the commercially oriented welfare arrangements of military conglomerates.
Author: Maung Aung Myoe
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
ISBN: 9812308482
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
Ever since Myanmar regained her independence in January 1948, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) has been crucial in restoring and maintaining law and order. It is one of the most important institutions in Myanmar politics. Various aspects of the Tatmadaw have been studied. The most notable area of study has been the political role of the military. This study looks at the organizational development of the Myanmar armed forces. It analyses four different aspects of the Tatmadaw: military doctrine and strategy, organization and force structure, armament and force modernization, and military training and officer education. It sets out security perceptions and policies, charting developments in each phase against the situation at the time, and also notes the contributions of the leading actors in the process. Since early 1990s, the Tatmadaw has implemented a force modernization programme. This work studies rationales and strategy behind the force modernization programme and examines the military capabilities of the Tatmadaw. Drawing extensively from archival sources and existing literature, this empirically grounded research argues that, while the internal armed security threat to the state continues to play an important role, it is the external security threat that gives more weight to the expansion and modernization of the Tatmadaw since 1988. It also argues that, despite its imperfections, the Tatmadaw has transformed from a force essentially for counter-insurgency operations into a force capable of fighting in limited conventional warfare.
Author: Patricia Howard
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 073039090X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
Learn to take control of your finances and your retirement with this one-stop Australian financial planning bible Have you ever wondered if you have enough money to make it through retirement? The No-Regrets Retirement Guide: How to Live Well, Invest Wisely and Make Your Money Last provides readers with a definitive answer to that question, as well as many others you may have always wanted to ask. Qualified financial planner and author Patricia Howard offers no-nonsense guidance on what it takes to get you to, and through, retirement. You’ll learn how to: Develop a positive and productive mindset as you enter retirement Take control of your finances, regardless of how much money you make or have Learn how to live on invested income rather than earned income Understand and learn to avoid the biggest pitfalls people commonly encounter as they approach retirement Perfect for people entering or already in retirement, The No-Regrets Retirement Guide also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone interested in ensuring they are in a financial position to enjoy their golden years.
Author: Duncan McCargo
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501712225
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
Fighting for Virtue investigates how Thailand's judges were tasked by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) in 2006 with helping to solve the country's intractable political problems—and what happened next. Across the last decade of Rama IX's rule, Duncan McCargo examines the world of Thai judges: how they were recruited, trained, and promoted, and how they were socialized into a conservative world view that emphasized the proximity between the judiciary and the monarchy. McCargo delves into three pivotal freedom of expression cases that illuminate Thai legal and cultural understandings of sedition and treason, before examining the ways in which accusations of disloyalty made against controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to occupy a central place in the political life of a deeply polarized nation. The author navigates the highly contentious role of the Constitutional Court as a key player in overseeing and regulating Thailand's political order before concluding with reflections on the significance of the Bhumibol era of "judicialization" in Thailand. In the end, posits McCargo, under a new king, who appears far less reluctant to assert his own power and authority, the Thai courts may now assume somewhat less significance as a tool of the monarchical network.
Author: David I Steinberg
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
ISBN: 9814951722
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
The Myanmar military has dominated that complex country for most of the period since independence in 1948. The fourth coup of 1 February 2021 was the latest by the military to control those aspects of society it deemed essential to its own interests, and its perception of state interests. The military’s institutional power was variously maintained by rule by decree, through political parties it founded and controlled, and through constitutional provisions it wrote that could not be amended without its approval. This fourth coup seems a product of personal demands for power between Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, and the especially humiliating defeat of the military-backed party at the hands of the National League for Democracy in the November 2020 elections. The violent and bloody suppression of widespread demonstrations continues, compromise seems unlikely, and the previous diarchic governance will not return. Myanmar’s political and economic future is endangered and suppression will only result in future outbreaks of political frustration.
Author: Andy Dunn
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0593238281
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
In this “gripping” (TechCrunch), “eye-opening” (Gayle King, Oprah Daily) memoir of mental illness and entrepreneurship, the co-founder of the menswear startup Bonobos opens up about the struggle with bipolar disorder that nearly cost him everything. “Arrestingly candid . . . the most powerful book I’ve read on manic depression since An Unquiet Mind.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLife ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Forbes At twenty-eight, fresh from Stanford’s MBA program and steeped in the move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Silicon Valley, Andy Dunn was on top of the world. He was building a new kind of startup—a digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand—out of his Manhattan apartment. Bonobos was a new-school approach to selling an old-school product: men’s pants. Against all odds, business was booming. Hustling to scale the fledgling venture, Dunn raised tens of millions of dollars while boundaries between work and life evaporated. As he struggled to keep the startup afloat, Dunn was haunted by a ghost: a diagnosis of bipolar disorder he received after a frightening manic episode in college, one that had punctured the idyllic veneer of his midwestern upbringing. He had understood his diagnosis as an unspeakable shame that—according to the taciturn codes of his fraternity, the business world, and even his family—should be locked away. As Dunn’s business began to take off, however, some of the very traits that powered his success as a founder—relentless drive, confidence bordering on hubris, and ambition verging on delusion—were now threatening to undo him. A collision course was set in motion, and it would culminate in a night of mayhem—one poised to unravel all that he had built. Burn Rate is an unconventional entrepreneurial memoir, a parable for the twenty-first-century economy, and a revelatory look at the prevalence of mental illness in the startup community. With intimate prose, Andy Dunn fearlessly shines a light on the dark side of success and challenges us all to take part in the deepening conversation around creativity, performance, and disorder.
Author: Vincent Bevins
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541724011
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2020 BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States. In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful. In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.
Author: Amod K. Kanth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9388630890
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
Khaki in Dust Storm is a gripping story of immersive investigations led by the celebrated police officer Amod K. Kanth who found himself at the vortex of India's tumultuous period of the 1980s and early 1990s. An era of dramatic crime, assassinations and terrorism, this period witnessed the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the horrific riots that followed; the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi; the murder of Lalit Maken and General Vaidya; public attacks by terrorists and bloodbaths at the peak of the Khalistani militancy; India's first-ever organised mass explosions through improvised electronic device in 1985, popularly known as 'transistor bombs'; and the growing influence of drug abuse and financial frauds. Leading into the minefield of these most sensational crime investigations that rocked India, he reveals in this book facts, stories and anecdotes that have hitherto remained outside the public discourse. He pieces together the details, narrates behind-the-scene manoeuvres, and carefully constructs the psyche of the perpetrators and the backdrop, weaving together a fantastic and powerful tale. This is also a story of a cathartic evolution of a police officer who, after landing in the coveted Indian Police Service, finds his dreams challenged and confined to the restricted role in the face of India's myopic conventional policing. This resulted in his eventual metamorphosis, overwhelmed by the need to search for a wider and transformative perspective in policing that could lay the groundwork for more expanded and gratifying interactions between the police and the community.
Author: Janine di Giovanni
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871403838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
A New York Post Best Book of 2016 Winner of the 2016 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award Winner of the 2016 Hay Festival Medal for Prose "Destined to become a classic." —Lisa Shea, Elle A masterpiece of war reportage, The Morning They Came for Us bears witness to one of the most brutal internecine conflicts in recent history. Drawing from years of experience covering Syria for Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and the front page of the New York Times, award-winning journalist Janine di Giovanni chronicles a nation on the brink of disintegration, all written through the perspective of ordinary people. With a new epilogue, what emerges is an unflinching picture of the horrific consequences of armed conflict, one that charts an apocalyptic but at times tender story of life in a jihadist war zone. The result is an unforgettable testament to resilience in the face of nihilistic human debasement.
