When the Transnational Meets the Particular: Businesses as Actors of Transnational Governance in a Changing Myanmar

Abstract: Following five decades of isolation and ruthless military rule, Myanmar authorities started implementing various nominally democratic reforms. In response to these developments Western governments scaled back sanctions that had made the country anathema to foreign business. Writing within premises of late modernity, and the retreat of the state as primary political-geographical reference, this thesis sets out to investigate the precipitation of transnational governance into the political sphere of Myanmar. It does so by conceptualising such governance through the lens of Saskia Sassen's theory of 'the global inside the national'. This objective is operationalised by examining articulations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by foreign companies in Myanmar as specific instances of transnational governance. By conducting a critical discourse analysis (CDA), this thesis uncovers two practices. First, CSR policies are found to be articulated as universally-conceived policies, layered into particulars within Myanmar, thus tentatively identifying an instance of Sassen's theory. Second, discursive material appears informed by commercial rationales, more than notions of cosmopolitan solidarity. Thereby it supports notions posited by e.g. Beck and Harvey that the transition out of modernity is asymmetrically in favour of market forces. These findings provide insights of potential relevance to Myanmar politics following the 2015 general elections.