Author: Ed Laws
Fiscal governance in Myanmar includes a wide range of policies and activities on the part of different groups, ranging from highly formalised institutions within state-like systems, to more experimental and ad hoc resistance economies. The term ‘fiscal governance’ is used in this brief to refer to the formal and informal institutions (rules and norms) that structure how public money is raised and spent. The term ‘constitutional’ is used, following Bell (2017), to refer not just to the ‘formal’ agreements and institutions in constitutional documents and the resulting constitutional order, but also the ongoing power dynamics that are bound up with constitution-making itself.
This brief underscores the theoretical and practical importance of understanding these forms of fiscal governance in Myanmar through a constitutional lens, in the sense of foregrounding their role in producing institutions (of greater and less resilience, legitimacy, etc) that help structure public life and political order. The brief also considers broader conclusions about the relationship between the politics of fiscal and monetary policymaking, power dynamics, and conflict, that can be drawn from the Myanmar experience.