Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar
VIEW EVENT DETAILSEvening with ROMAN DAVID, Head, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University & IAN HOLLIDAY, Vice-President, The University of Hong Kong
Drinks Reception 5:30pm
Presentation 6:00pm
Close 7:00pm
Historic Myanmar elections in November 2015 paved the way for an NLD government led by Aung San Suu Kyi to take office in March 2016, and saw the country deepen its graduated transition away from authoritarian rule. Nevertheless, military forces that for decades dominated national politics remain privileged in a constitutional framework designed to deliver ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’. In August 2017, the military intensified its ethnic cleansing campaign of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, and more than 750,000 refugees fled to neighbouring Bangladesh. One critical question that now confronts the 50 million people of this Southeast Asian nation is whether their push for greater democracy is strong enough to prevail over the resistance of a powerful military machine and swelling undercurrents of intolerance. Academics Roman David and Ian Holliday, authors of Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar, explore the prospects for liberal democracy in Myanmar.
Roman David is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University. His research is largely interdisciplinary, spanning political sociology, political psychology, and law & society. He recently published a monograph entitled Communists and Their Victims (2018). He co-authored with Ian Holliday, Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar, and is the author of Lustration and Transitional Justice (2011). Prof David previously held positions at various universities, including Newcastle, Yale, City University, Baptist University, Wits, Oxford, Harvard and Masaryk.
Ian Holliday is Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) at The University of Hong Kong. Previously he was Dean of Social Sciences at The University of Hong Kong, and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at City University of Hong Kong. His recent books are Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar (2018), co-authored with Roman David, Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar (2018), co-edited with Adam Simpson and Nicholas Farrelly, and Burma Redux: Global Justice and the Quest for Political Reform in Myanmar (2011). He was educated at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.
Event Details
Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty