ABSTRACT
The balance in the security discourse in Myanmar needs to be reversed: a strong and stable state is a function of public policies which make human security the pre-eminent focus of government policies as well as provision of goods and services. The nexus between state, regime and human security was expressed in terms of both political and socio-economic development, and efforts to strengthen Myanmar’s fragile social cohesion. At first glance, human security appears to give pre-eminence to the well-being of the individual and to reify individual human dignity. In post-socialist, transitional societies like Myanmar, with weak civil societies and definitions of citizenship which reflect the socialist fusion of political and civil society, the relation of the individual to the collective, the community in which the individual operates, is at the heart of concepts of human security, respect for human rights, and the state’s relationship with the wider international community.
