Development in a fragile pariah state: Myanmar 1990-2010

Myanmar was not only a ‘fragile state’ by most definitions during the 1990s and 2000s, but was concurrently isolated as an international ‘pariah’. The complexity of this paradoxical combination of poverty, fragility, pro-economic growth polity and international isolation created an enigmatic context for international agencies, and one in which existing frameworks for development in ‘fragile states’ do not appear overly relevant. Nonetheless, Myanmar experienced a surprising level of development activity, with equally surprising signs of effectiveness. This paper explores this activity, identifying actors, roles, approaches, and modalities of interaction with structures and authorities found to be most effective. The paper is divided into four sections, offering an overview of the historical context, summarising field observations, considering the effectiveness of interventions, and discussing these observations in the light of fragile state policy.

Time-Dependent Density Functional Molecular Orbital and Excited State Calculations on Bis(porphyrinyl)butadiynes in the Monocationic, Neutral, Monoanionic, and Dianionic Oxidation States

We report a theoretical study of the multiple oxidation states (1+, 0, 1−, and 2−) of a meso,meso-linked diporphyrin, namely bis[10,15,20-triphenylporphyrinatozinc(II)-5-yl]butadiyne (4), using Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT). The origin of electronic transitions of singlet excited states is discussed in comparison to experimental spectra for the corresponding oxidation states of the close analogue bis{10,15,20-tris[3‘,5‘-di-tert-butylphenyl]porphyrinatozinc(II)-5-yl}butadiyne (3). The latter were measured in previous work under in situ spectroelectrochemical conditions. Excitation energies and orbital compositions of the excited states were obtained for these large delocalized aromatic radicals, which are unique examples of organic mixed-valence systems. The radical cations and anions of butadiyne-bridged diporphyrins such as 3 display characteristic electronic absorption bands in the near-IR region, which have been successfully predicted with use of these computational methods. The radicals are clearly of the “fully delocalized” or Class III type. The key spectral features of the neutral and dianionic states were also reproduced, although due to the large size of these molecules, quantitative agreement of energies with observations is not as good in the blue end of the visible region. The TDDFT calculations are largely in accord with a previous empirical model for the spectra, which was based simplistically on one-electron transitions among the eight key frontier orbitals of the C4 (1,4-butadiyne) linked diporphyrins.