It has been exactly twelve months since the first civilian government of Myanmar took the office in 50 years. Regardless of high degree of international and domestic legitimacy, the civilian government however has been facing challenges in several fronts, including ineffective governance. This study answers the question of what makes the civilian government in Myanmar ineffective? Many people understood todays ineffective governance as the result of the constitutional barriers put in place by the previous military government, which include power sharing arrangement with the military, and not being able to select de facto leader as president. However this study argues that these constitutional barriers shape the governments policies only in areas related to national security. It therefore should not be overgeneralized as constitutional barriers determine the overall governance effectiveness. Todays reality of ineffective governance is rather because the government lacks the capacity to be able to design and implement coherent policies to push the country towards a democratic state. In other words, the author argues that it is not politics of the militarys power sharing arrangement makes ineffective policies. In contrast, it is poorly designed policies resulting from fragmented policymaking of the government that determine politics of governance in Myanmar. This study builds on the enquiry on policymaking of the civilian government in Myanmar, 2016-2017 in five critical areas of countrys political transition: (1) civil- military relations, (2) democratization and decentralization (3) social justice, (4) ethnic conflicts, and (5) geo-politics.
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