Burmese - Sociopolitical Organization

Myanmar is made up of fifteen states and divisions, all centralized under a single bureaucracy run by the army and its mass organization, the Lanzin party. This was constitutionally set up in 1974. Below this formai structure are the villages, linked by various agencies in a hierarchy reaching from the village to the prime minister's office. The village has an elected headman and he is the link between the bureaucracy and the party. There are agencies of the central government in contact with the villagers, but it is chiefly the army and the mass party that impinge on the local organization, which tries to settle its disputes at the local level.