Alternative futures for governance in Burma: 2040

Abstract

A review of the relevant literature on Burma and the results of a small sample survey conducted outside Burma to gather information about images that people (mostly expatriates) have about governance in Burma serve as the springboard for the designing of four alternative scenarios. These scenarios consider whether Burma, by 2040, will be a nation that is in a state of governance that (1) has shown economic growth; (2) has collapsed; (3) has organized itself around some overarching set of values; or (4) has transformed itself to become completely different from what is expected or assumed.This dissertation uses the filter of futures studies to envision an array of alternative futures for what governance in Burma could be by the year 2040. The use of the plural "futures" stresses the element of choice concerning what the future will be like. The term "alternative futures" denotes that the future is not fixed and various possibilities should be explored. A fifth preferred scenario imagines governance in Burma in 2040 that reintroduces features of a monarchy into Burma's futures.