Organizer: NYSEAN

Type/Location: Hybrid / New York, NY

Image: Major scam center buildings in Shwe Kokko, Myanmar.

Description:

This talk examines the shaping of local orders behind civil war and the expansion of online scamming in Myanmar’s borderlands. Following the 2021 military coup, the Chinese-operated scam industry proliferated along the Myanmar–Thai border, relying on fortified compounds and tens of thousands of trafficked workers from across Asia and beyond. Drawing upon field research conducted since 2021, the presentation asks why and how the scamming industry expanded despite escalating armed conflict and instability after the coup. To explain the apparent paradox, the talk analyzes the underlying political economy and the shaping of orders in the region. I argue that a negotiated order, shaped through decades of state coercion and co-option of the Karen insurgent groups and the brokerage by co-opted armed groups between the military–state and anti-state insurgents, facilitated the expansion of illicit economies, including online scamming. By foregrounding the relationship between local orders and illicit economies, this study contributes to broader debates on the political economy of civil war in Southeast Asia and beyond. It challenges the conventional narrative that simply links illicit economies to state absence and disorder, demonstrating instead how state control and order-making can actively enable their proliferation.

About the Speaker:

Kota Watanabe is Visiting Scholar at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a member of NYSEAN. His research focuses on the political economy of civil wars, humanitarian care, and transnational organized crime in contemporary Myanmar. His current work is supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Overseas Research Fellowship.

Registration:

To attend the event in person or virtually, please register here.