Date of Award
11-2025
Degree Type
TPG Capstone Project (Taught Postgraduate Project)
Department
Sociology and Social Policy
Supervisor
Prof. Stefan KÜHNER
Abstract
Myanmar’s persistent poverty has been deeply rooted in its current political unrest, decades of poor governance, and entrenched clientelism – a system where informal patronage networks exchange material benefits for political loyalty, sidelining equitable welfare delivery (Jones, 2014, Berenschot and Mulder, 2019). The serial issues have now developed into a poly-crisis which consists of a confluence of economic collapse, political instability, and disasters like COVID-19, cyclones, earthquakes, and armed conflicts (UNDP, 2025b). Therefore, the study aims to synthesize Myanmar’s complex interplay between grassroots welfare systems, power dynamics, and external partnerships within Myanmar’s fragile context and proposes to comprehensively investigate poverty in Myanmar. The research will examine the critical role of CBW in national development and investigate clientelism within Myanmar’s parahita culture and its implications for welfare redistribution. Finally, this study will conduct a comparative analysis of CBW systems in Myanmar and its ASEAN neighbor, Thailand, applying Mumtaz and Kühner’s (2025) typology to differentiate the (in)effective (in)formal welfare regimes.
Language
English
Copyright
The copyright of this dissertation is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution, or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited.
Recommended Citation
Mai Tam Aung Seinn (2025). Prahita, power, and partnership (PPP): Navigating community-based welfare and clientelism in Myanmar’s poverty reduction, comparative analysis of Myanmar and Thailand (TPG Capstone Project, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from https://commons.ln.edu.hk/soc605_stdwork/25