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Podcast: New Books in Political Science
Episode: Amitav Acharya, "Tragic Nation: Burma--Why and How Democracy Failed" (Penguin Random House, 2023)
Description: What went wrong with Burma’s democratic experiment? How are we to understand the country’s turbulent politics in the wake of the 2021 coup?In this conversation with Duncan McCargo, Amitav Acharya talks about his new book on Burma, which draws extensively on communications with young activists he refers to as “thought warriors”. He also discusses the challenges of researching a closed country, and why he decided to write a crossover book that he hopes will reach beyond the usual academic audiences.A decade ago, Burma was full of light and hope. Today, it has descende...