Buschmann, A. (2019) Conducting a Street-Intercept Survey in an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Myanmar, Social Science Quarterly, 100, 857-868. doi:10.1111/ssqu.12611
In this research note, I share my experiences conducting a street‐intercept survey in Yangon, Myanmar. The prestudy aimed to measure postmaterialism among Burmese using Roland Inglehart’s four‐item measure. The article discusses the key features and advantages of the street‐intercept survey method in difficult sociopolitical environments, the design, and implementation of the study, as well as the results of the survey. Moreover, the ethics one ought to consider in authoritarian regimes are emphasized.
Buschmann, A. (2018) Introducing the Myanmar Protest Event Dataset: Motivation, Methodology and Research Prospects,
in Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 37(2), 125-142.
This article presents the Myanmar Protest Event Dataset, a unique dataset on protest assemblies in transitional Myanmar/Burma. The data contents were derived from the most visible forms of assembly – demonstrations, protest marches and labour strikes – and collected through a protest event analysis of local news reports. The coded variables range from information on the actual moment of the protest event, such as participants, issue, duration and location, to the aftermath, including variables related to legal consequences for protesters and the success of protesters’ claims, and many others. Besides a concise description of the research design and data collection process, this article discusses the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the dataset.
Buschmann, A. (2018) Protest und Demokratisierung in Myanmar: Erste Erkenntnisse aus dem Myanmar Protest Event
Dataset [Protest and Democratization in Myanmar: First Insights from the Myanmar
Protest Event Dataset], in Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques, 72(1), 295-304. [SSRN]
Myanmar has been perceived to be in a sociopolitical and economic transition since the semi-civilian government under President Thein Sein took office in 2011. Amongst other things, for representative democracy to function, citizens have to have the freedom to express their opinions and deliberate them with fellow citizens. This requires the secure granting of fundamental civil liberties, as prescribed in the freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Hence, once in the process of democratization, a formerly authoritarian state has to make significant improvements in the granting and protection of these rights too. To empirically test whether Myanmar has made such improvements since 2011 is the goal of a greater research project I am working on. This research note introduces the project and summarizes the first findings. By combining knowledge on legal reforms and protest data from the Myanmar Protest Event Dataset, it is suggested that, in Myanmar, the de jure exercisability and de facto exercise of fundamental civil liberties have significantly improved from 2011 to 2015. Informal methods of suppressing the right to protest, such as arbitrary violence, have increasingly descended while methods that are formally in accordance with the rule of law but still lack compliance with international human rights standards have ascended.