Since 1988, when Burma's military rulers crushed a popular uprising, Western governments have promoted democracy as a panacea for the country's manifold development problems, from ethnic conflict to weak governance, human rights abuses, and deep-rooted, structural poverty. Years of escalating censure and sanctions, however, have left the military firmly entrenched in power, the opposition marginalized, and the general population suffering from deepening poverty. In the first book-length study of Western human rights policy in Burma, Morten B. Pedersen argues that Western democracy rhetoric...