"Abstract: Myanmar’s liberalizing reforms since late 2010 have effectively shed the country’s decades-long “pariah state” status. This article evaluates competing explanations for why Myanmar’s leaders made the strategic decision to pursue reform and opening. We examine whether the strategic decision was motivated by fears of sudden regime change, by socialization into the norms of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or by the geopolitics of overreliance on China. Drawing on newly available materials and recent field interviews in Myanmar, we demonstrate how difficult it is for international actors to persuade a pariah state through sanctions or engagement, given the pariah regime’s intense focus on maintaining power. However, reliance on a more powerful neighbour can reach a point where costs to national autonomy become unacceptable, motivating reforms for the sake of economic and diplomatic diversification.....Acknowledgments: We gratefully acknowledge the participation of interviewees in Yangon, Naypyidaw, Seoul, and Washington, DC. Research assistance was provided by Andrew Choi, Esther Pau Sann Cing, Li Xuan, Li Zimeng, Wang Qichao, Wu Shangwei, Zhang Xiaorui, and Zhou Xin. We also wish to thank the editor, three anonymous reviewers, and participants at the 2014 Murdoch-Macau Colloquium on Political Change and Governance in Asia, whose comments greatly improved this article. We thank the Asan Institute for Policy Studies for supporting Leif-Eric Easley’s research travel to Myanmar in 2014. Research for this article was funded in part by a grant from the University of Macau (SRG2013-00057-FSS). For over two decades, Myanmar suffered the reputation of an international pariah. After the 1988 coup that inaugurated 22 years of military rule under the State Law and Order Restoration Council / State Peace and Development Council (SLORC/SPDC),1 Myanmar incurred international condemnation and sanctions for human rights violations, including annulling the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) electoral victory in 1990; detaining opposition leaders, including NLD General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi; killing civilians during military campaigns against armed ethnic minority groups; violently suppressing civil protests in the 2007 “Saffron Revolution”; and muzzling free speech and the press.2 The junta appeared unmoved by sanctions and international exhortations to pursue reform and opening. Its apparent steps toward ending military rule under the 2003 “Roadmap to Discipline-Flourishing Democracy” were often marred by process irregularities, lack of inclusiveness and transparency, and restrictions on and sometimes violent repression of opposition parties. Though the SPDC held landmark elections for a civilian government in November 2010, supporters of democracy were not encouraged when the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) swept the polls and elevated Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein to the presidency. Many were surprised, however, when Thein Sein initiated extensive reforms in 2011: releasing political prisoners, loosening media and civil society restrictions, and allowing Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition members to run for parliament. Myanmar’s pariah status quickly abated as a parade of foreign leaders visited the country and eased sanctions. In November 2015, Myanmar’s first general election under nominally civilian rule saw the NLD defeat the USDP in a landslide, marking a new era in Myanmar’s politics.3 The manner in which Myanmar pursued transformative reforms raises important questions. Why did the SPDC pursue reform and opening when it did? What motivated the strategic decision to pursue transformative policies? Several scholars have argued that domestic factors drove Myanmar’s reforms. Jones maintains that the junta’s co-optation of ethnic militias allowed it to resume a democratization process it had begun and aborted in 1990 and again in 1996.4 Bünte, along with Croissant and Kamerling, emphasizes the aging SPDC leaders’ desire to manage succession politics through institutionalization.5 Roger Lee Huang argues that the junta sought to retain political control but did not foresee the extent of reforms under Thein Sein, an assessment shared by MacDonald.6 Other scholarship emphasizes international factors as primary catalysts for reform. One argument is that Myanmar’s leaders implemented domestic reforms to pursue rapprochement with the European Union, the United States, and other sanctions-imposing countries, and to counterbalance China’s growing political and economic influence.7 Another possible factor behind Myanmar’s transition is the socializing role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and more generally, Myanmar’s desire for international prestige.8 While more than one of these factors may have motivated Myanmar’s reforms, an “all of the above” answer leaves the country’s political transformation over-determined and under-examined. This article weighs the theoretical logic and empirical evidence for three competing explanations for Myanmar’s strategic decision to pursue transformative policies: first, junta leaders’ desire to maintain power and avoid sudden regime change; second, socialization into ASEAN norms; and third, the desire to reduce China’s political and economic influence over Myanmar.9 We base our research on numerous interviews with key informants in or engaged with Myanmar, as well as on primary documents. We find that while multiple factors motivated Myanmar’s strategic decision, the most important driver was concern about China’s growing influence. To frame the analysis, the next section defines pariah states and what it means to make a strategic decision to pursue transformative policies and exit pariahdom. We then briefly outline our interview methodology before discussing the timing of Myanmar’s transformative reforms. Subsequent sections review theoretical bases and empirical support for each of the three competing explanations. In the conclusion, we summarize our findings and discuss possible implications for other pariah states and for Myanmar’s political future..."