accountability has been as much, if not more, of a driving factor. Perceived changes in the overall environment, reflected in the likes of VTA elections, albeit indirect, and improved information sources documenting successful advocacy pursuits across the country have increased the downward accountability, resulting in an increasing willingness of villagers to lodge complaints (QSEM 2016).

Non-electoral accountability to communities has also evolved in recent years, with village authorities reporting since 2015 that villagers are vocal with their demands and more assertive in their dealings with village administrators and VTAs alike. One village administrator in Chin State captured the trend, claiming that “before, village leaders wielded power. Now the villagers wield power” (QSEM 2014). In addition, as villagers’ connections beyond the village expand, they have shown an increased willingness to question the work of local officials. While this emerging trend was reported first in 2015, in the 2016 research period there were clear examples of villagers in Chin and Kachin States interacting directly with the township authorities. As ever, there was some divide between the center and periphery; roadblocks to the expansion of VTA authority, such as access challenges or villages circumventing the village tract, were more common in the more remote states than in the central regions (QSEM, forthcoming).

# 4. Expectations of the State

Another central issue has been changes in how people interact with the ‘everyday state’<sup>10</sup> and perceive its role in their lives. The relationship has been shaped by an extended prior period of engagement in which the state was coercive but provided few services in return. The coercive aspects included government regulations determining how villagers used their land (Takashi 2008), the types of crops they could grow (Hudson-Rodd 2003) and curtailing local political activity or the voicing of grievances through restrictive laws on freedom of association and expression (Wells 2014). Villages, in return, received little from the state. Government expenditure on social sectors, for example, was one of the lowest in the world as a proportion of overall budget expenditure (UNDP 2014, World Bank 2015c). People in rural areas expected little from the government and sought to minimize their interactions with state actors, with villages becoming largely self-reliant (Tripartite Core Group 2008).

As part of the transition, policy at the national level emphasized the importance of producing results locally. The previous government’s “people-centered development” approach aimed to deliver a “rapid improvement of public services and development with quick wins” (Anon 2014, Nixon 2014). In response, expenditure on health has tripled as a share of the budget, moving from 1.7 percent of the budget in 2009/10 to 6.4 percent in 2013/14, while education grew from 7.2 percent to 12.5 percent over the same period (World Bank 2015c). This increase in government expenditure has been reflected in the steady increase in government service provision in the QSEM villages. The rollout of these services, combined with the implementation locally of other national policy reforms – in particular reforms relating to land ownership, and strengthened information flows – are influencing community expectations of the role of government. In turn, these changing expectations are producing, over time, observable changes in how communities interact with government through greater upwards accountability.

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