What does everyday interaction with the state mean in the context of Myanmar? What does it consist of and what does it look like? More importantly, what kinds of challenges do ordinary citizens face in their everyday interaction with the state? I explored these questions in my seven weeks of summer field research in Myitkyina Township, Kachin State, which is one of 330 townships across Myanmar. In total, I conducted 21 focus group interviews, meeting 72 ordinary citizens, in 9 randomly selected wards and village tracts across Myitkyina Townships; there are 28 wards (urban zones) and 17 village tracts (rural zones) in Myitkyina Township. I also conducted a trial run (not a systematic pilot) of my survey questions on a convenient sample of 59 students. As a convenient sample of students, the sample population is much younger than the target population; more than 50% of the sample was aged 20 years or younger and about 90% of the sample was aged 28 years or younger. The vast majority of the focus group participants were Kachins, the titular ethnic group of Kachin State, but there were a few Shans and Gurkhas. In contrast, all the survey participants were Kachins.

Everyday interaction with the state refers to citizens’ mundane interactions with the street-level or minor government officials and civil servants. In Myanmar, where the government-provided welfare system is nearly nonexistent, everyday interaction with the state is mundane in every sense and primarily consists of accessing basic government services that one cannot live without. For example, a government-issued household registration document, which enumerates all the members of the household and their relationship to the head of household, is required in order to apply for a passport or a government-issued I.D., to register one’s child in a public school, or to transfer money via Western Union. To obtain such a document, one must visit a township-level immigration office and register one’s household. Other examples include visiting a municipal office to pay tax for one’s house-front shop or morning market vegetable stall and extending the deed of one’s property. Perhaps the most basic interaction is obtaining endorsement letters from local government agencies, as they are needed to apply for basic documents such as the previously mentioned household registration and government issued I.D. These visits to local government agencies and interaction with low-level minor government officials and civil servants are common experiences of all adult ordinary citizens in Burma. For example, only 9%, 4%, and 13% of the sample reported that they had not attempted to obtain a household registration, a government issued I.D, and a driver’s license respectively. In contrast, 90%, 77% and 80% of the sample reported that they have had no previous interaction with the Chief Minister of Kachin State (the highest elected official in the state, akin to governor in the U.S.), national Members of Parliament (MPs), and MPs of the state government, respectively.

These ordinary citizens face several challenges in accessing basic government services, and these challenges can be thought of as efficiency-related or ethnic in nature. Examples of efficiency-related challenges include substantial distances of travel by local residents, especially those that reside in the rural parts of the township, to government offices, which are located in the downtown area of the township, only to be told to return the next day because the official with whom they need to meet was away or busy. One local resident I surveyed visited the office of the land records department in her township to inquire if her plots of land were on the list of “uncultivated land” or “land without owner.” She was told to come back the next day because the person in charge of that matter was not in the office that day. She wondered why the office could not publish a list of “uncultivated land” that the local residents could check the current status of their land. Similarly, an attempt to apply for a deed took four years because the respondent was required to make repeated journeys to the government office. Yet another respondent reported that when she applied for a building permit from the township municipal office to construct a new building on her land, she was asked to obtain endorsement letters from four local government agencies. The respondent explained that obtaining a letter from just one of the agencies took several days if not weeks. By the time she successfully secured all the endorsement letters, it was sometime in December. Thus, by the time she showed up to the municipal office with all the necessary documents, it was already the new year, and she was told that she could not apply for a building permit with endorsement letters from the previous year. She could not protest and quickly started over in great frustration.

One of the key challenges that ordinary citizens face in accessing basic government services is corruption, especially bribery. Having to pay more than the officially enumerated fees for basic government services has always been part of the Myanmar experience as far as the current generation is concerned. In the past, people rarely visited local government offices to conduct their official matters; rather they hired poi-zas, or middlemen, who applied for household registration documents, I.D.s, passports or conducted other official business on their behalf for a fee. Of course, these people who hired poi-zas would still be responsible for the extra fees paid to the government officials and civil servants, in addition to the poi-za fee. In the past few years, the prevalence of poi-zas has dwindled, but the extra fees paid to the officials and civil servants remain. One of the interviewees recounted how she was told that her daughter would have to wait about 20 days to receive her government-issued I.D. Although she explained that her daughter was scheduled to travel to the neighboring Shan State and needed an I.D. to make the trip, the civil servant remained firm that the waiting time was 20 days. However, when she gifted him 10,000 kyats, she was told that the I.D. would become available for pick up by the next morning!

When the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) commenced its tenure in the government, there was a noticeable shift with regards to bribery scenes at the local government offices and agencies. Combatting corruption is a defining principle of the NLD. As a result, the civil servants were banned from accepting gifts worth more than 25,000 kyats (about $18). However, the effectiveness of the NLD’s anti-corruption campaign has rather mixed-results for ordinary citizens’ experience in their attempts to access basic government services. Some respondents reported that the services that used to cost an extra fee of 50,000 kyat were now virtually free. Others complained that accessing basic government services was now slower and more complicated than before because the civil servants would not overtly accept gifts. Some would not accept gifts overtly, if at all, and thus, could not be cajoled into processing ones’ document faster than the normal wait time, which is rarely ever reasonable. Others do accept gifts, but only discreetly, and figuring out how manage this became yet another burden for the locals trying to access basic government services.

Beyond issues of efficiency and corruption, there may be additional challenges faced by ordinary citizens who are ethnic minorities. While the official language in Myanmar is Burmese, ethnic minorities primarily speak their ethnic languages at home. Therefore, it is not surprising that 55% of the survey sample agreed that their level of Burmese language proficiency prevents them from adequately expressing their needs to local government officials and civil servants. Again, this is from a convenient sample of students who are much younger and presumably more proficient in the Burmese language than the larger Kachin population. Furthermore, several interviewees from ethnic minorities mentioned that they are often apprehensive of visiting government offices, though it is unclear what the source of this is. An interviewee, who is currently a civil servant in a local government agency, recalled that her superior remarked how few complaints his office has received from local residents compared to the office where he was previously posted, which was an ethnic majority dominated area. Due to lack of data, it is not yet possible to tell whether some challenges systematically affect ethnic minorities more so than ethnic majorities.

Is the government doing anything to alleviate these challenges? As mentioned previously, the current government launched an anti-corruption campaign at the beginning of its tenure, though it is unclear if this campaign alleviates or creates more challenges for local residents. Within the last couple of years, the government has begun to establish one-stop-shop (OSS) government offices in several townships; OSS offices house authorized representatives from more than 9 local government agencies under one roof and are meant to make it easier for the local residents apply for necessary endorsement letters and official documents. Beyond measures to tackle efficiency, the government seems to be oblivious to the fact that some of its citizens may face unique obstacles in accessing basic government services precisely due to their ethnicity.

By Jangai Jap, Sigur Field Research Grant Recipient for Summer 2018. Jangai is a Ph.D. Candidate in George Washington University’s Political Science Department. Her research interest includes ethnic politics, national identity, local government and Myanmar politics. Her dissertation aims to explain factors that shape ethnic minorities’ attachment to the state and why has the state been more successful in winning over a sense of attachment from members of some ethnic minority groups than other ethnic minority groups. She has won the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and her dissertation research has received support from the Cosmos Club Foundation and GW’s Sigur Center for Asian Studies.