Persuading Pariahs: Myanmar’s Strategic Decision for Reform and Opening

Myanmar’s liberalizing reforms since late 2010 have effectively shed the country’s decades-long “pariah state” status. This article evaluates competing explanations for why Myanmar’s leaders made the strategic decision to pursue reform and opening. We examine whether the strategic decision was motivated by fears of sudden regime change, by socialization into the norms of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or by the geopolitics of overreliance on China. Drawing on newly available materials and recent field interviews in Myanmar, we demonstrate how difficult it is for international actors to persuade a pariah state through sanctions or engagement, given the pariah regime’s intense focus on maintaining power. However, reliance on a more powerful neighbour can reach a point where costs to national autonomy become unacceptable, motivating reforms for the sake of economic and diplomatic diversification.

劝服被排斥的国家（被放逐的国家）:  缅甸改革开放的战略决策

关键词： 缅甸，中国，东盟，制裁，被排斥（放逐）的国家，威权政体转型。

自2010年末开始实施的自由化改革已经让缅甸摆脱了几十年来“被排斥的国家”的身份。本文对缅甸领袖决定实行改革开放这一战略决定的原因的各种解释进行了评估。我们考察了驱动这个策略性的决定的是对政体遽变的恐惧、东盟规范的社会化影响，还是出于对过度依赖中国的担忧的地缘政治考量。利用新近公开的资料以及在缅甸的实地访谈，我们表明，鉴于被排斥国家高度关注对权力的掌控，对于国际行动者来说通过制裁或是接触来劝服被排斥的国家是何等困难。然而， 对更强大的邻国的依赖会达到一个临界点，其中国家自主权的代价大到不能被接受，从而促使为实现经济和外交多元化而进行改革。

Translated from English by Li Guo