Episode #255: Decoding the Regime Playbook
“In the political science literature, there has always been a belief, almost an expectation, that military regimes are the weakest form of authoritarian regime,” explains Roger Huang. “So it's always been a puzzling question: ‘Why has the Myanmar Tatmadaw successfully… been able to maintain its dominance over Myanmar state and society since 1958?”
This is just part of the question that Huang sets out to answer in his 2020 book, The Paradox of Myanmar’s Regime Change. After providing an overview detailing how the infamous “Burmese Way to Socialism” had failed horribly following the 1962 coup, Huang describes how the 1988 democratic protests alerted the generals that some kind of change was dramatically needed. “[They] wanted to introduce its version of a Burmese democracy; its version of a market-based economy.” For Huang, the regime’s policy shift did not represent any real desire to bring democratic reforms, but was rather just an attempt to remain in power by reinventing itself. The military coined the term “disciplined democracy” for this strategy, which Huang describes as being “segregated politics, a clear delineation where one big chunk of governance is reserved for civilians, elected parliamentarians, and partisan politics; and then you have the other side of politics where the military has control, dominance, and monopoly of power for issues where they don't think the civilians, partisan politics, citizens, and individuals should touch on.” He explains how the military took steps to voluntarily dissolve the ruling junta towards that end, and doing so at a time when the opposition forces posed no real threat, and international sanctions were having little effect.
Huang acknowledges that his analysis contrasts with the accepted narrative, which centers around the agency of what he calls “elite, individual actors.” And while not discounting the influence of important figures like Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi on shaping events, Huang argues that they were not the determining factor as to how the transition period and coup played out. As he exclaims, “The determining factor is the [military] institution, itself!” In other words, to Huang, the key to understanding this history is how the military has viewed itself and its role over the years.
Huang grounds the discussion in the military’s postwar origins. Conflicts raging throughout the country as well as along the borders prompted the army to strengthen itself, in order to quell the disturbances and establish order. “This allowed the military to see itself as being the only legitimate political actor that could really protect the unity of the Burmese state,” he says. Importantly, these circumstances led the army to view itself in a somewhat idealistic light, as rising above the partisanship of political parties and ethnic groups, as the only organization truly committed to the country’s stability; it is a vision which its current propaganda continues to harken back to. He summarizes the military’s thinking in this way: “They presented themselves as the Praetorian guards, as the leaders who have the best interests of Burma at heart, and the only one that could rise above partisan politics, above these different ethnic interests and unite all of Myanmar… And that's why the military has consistently put itself front and center of Myanmar politics, because it does not trust the civilians!”
To Huang, this mindset explains why Ne Win launched the 1962 coup: he feared the prevailing political strife was threatening the very Union, and that only military control could stabilize it. This also explains the military’s intervention after the NLD’s 1990 electoral victory. “If [the NLD] is going to threaten the military's position in the system [in building] this disciplined democracy, this ‘Myanmar way to democracy,’ then that's where they would step in,” Huang says, describing how the military has grown to believe that the stability of the nation is synonymous with its own ascendency within the system. And to Huang, this explains the 2021 coup, too, as the military viewed the NLD’s victory in the elections as existentially threatening to its continued influence.
In its pursuit of its “disciplined democracy,” Huang describes the military as forming what he terms a “hybrid regime”; that is, a type of governance that had “some features of democratic politics, but there's of course a lot of authoritarian mechanisms still in place.” It was Ne Win who, recognizing the shortcomings of his socialist policies, can be credited as the architect of this hybrid system. And indeed, beginning in the 1990s, Myanmar's economy did gradually begin to become more liberalized, although the lack of corresponding political freedoms deterred Western engagement. Instead, neighboring Asian nations filled this void, and seized on the Myanmar’s new, economic opportunities, engaging in trade and investment that enriched a new echelon of Myanmar's crony elite. At the same time, the military negotiated ceasefires with ethnic factions, which allowed it the space to focus on opportunities for its own enrichment. This also reinforced the junta's belief that its strategy of allowing controlled economic expansion—but critically, not substantive, fully transformative democratization—was indeed the most effective way to remain in power.
This strategy paved the way for the dramatic changes that took place during the transition. And Huang is emphatic that “dramatic change” was indeed underway at that point, and that it was not just cosmetic. “This was real! Suddenly, you can actually have almost full access to the internet. This is astounding for a lot of people, you have access to everything!” he exclaims. “Finally, you can actually talk about democracy and human rights and all these things.” Be that as it may, Huang also points out how the overall trajectory of Myanmar's political landscape during those years continued to align closely with the military's original blueprint. And this was, in fact, aided by the NLD’s slow-walking of liberal reforms, much to the chagrin of progressives, and more or less allowing the military free reign in its brutal offensives against ethnic groups like the Rohingya and Kachin. So on balance, despite the dramatic changes that Huang also points to, he feels that the military was generally pleased with the way things were developing during that transformative period.
But once the NLD began to make real noise about changing the Constitution to lessen the military’s control, the generals were spurred to action. “They allowed the internet, allowed these foreigners to come in to preach about democracy and human rights,” Huang says. “But it didn't actually threaten the military's control and their key interest. If you actually see when crackdowns did happen during Thein Sein’s period, it was still always on cases that threatened the military's idea of security or defense. So when you had a nationwide kind of discussion about education, there were crackdowns. When you have journalists touching on issues of ethnic affairs and security, they were arrested. And this also happened during the Aung San Suu Kyi period.”
This is also where Huang’s early comments about the divergent understandings of “democratization” come into play. In contrast to the military’s policy of “disciplined democracy,” the NLD hoped for gradual democratic transformation that was incremental enough so as not to rattle the military, while civil society organizations were drawn to Western concepts of democracy—one either had political freedom, or one did not. As for the country’s ethnic groups, their priorities mainly revolved around autonomy and self-determination.
For this reason, Huang questions the commonly used term, “democratic transition,” for this period in Myanmar’s history. Instead, he argues that these years can be more accurately characterized as a “hybrid” of competing interests and dynamics: of democratic forces, economic expansion… and of course, looming over everyone, the military’s firm grip on control and total impunity. He says, “It doesn't matter who was voted in, it doesn't matter what the electorates want. When it comes to matters of national security, those are independently decided by the military!” Huang insists that the military never had any intent to allow the country to “transition to a democracy” in the sense that many Western observers would interpret that term. This harkens back to the military’s intended meaning of a “disciplined democracy,” which they see as operating in sharp contrast to fledgling democracies that “will allow the civilian elected officials to decide on the direction of military, and to decide over issues of national security, and border control, and ethnic relationships.”
This controlled view of democracy also informs how the military viewed the development of civil society during those years. “[The junta] needed the society, the individuals, the citizens to understand that ‘we will give you the space to operate, whether it's providing health, food security to your neighbors, free funeral service, and whatever you need for education and health. You can do all this, as long as you do not touch on issues, though, that seem political.’” So long as Myanmar’s emerging civil society did not threaten the military’s entrenched position, it was allowed to proceed. In other words, “you're allowed to work on your local community issues and welfare, as long as you stay out of national politics and national security.”
Huang also criticizes the presumption that the evolution of a more liberal civil society necessarily leads towards democratization, and provides a striking example: the Weimar Republic in Germany of the 1920s and its open society, which was followed by the brutal Nazi regime! Looking at an emphasis on civil society from a different angle, he notes how not all such associations are positive, either; he points to the very illiberal, Buddhist-monk led, anti-Islam group Ma Ba Tha illustrates as a case in point. What is more, he rejects the view that the civil space in Myanmar was ever as closed as some made it out to be. “There was this perception that there was a lack of associational life in Myanmar, and that's just frankly not true. This has always survived in some form or the other.” Finally, he echoes the words of the activist Bobo speaking about Generation Wave’s activity during the transition years, noting that the NLD was actually not much more interested in working together with civil society groups in seeking genuine liberalization than the military. “Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a pessimist and a downer, and I just don't see an immediate turn, or a greater cohesion within the system, this so-called civil society space, to produce this kind of positive, liberal, democratic narrative that might serve as a genuine counterweight to the authoritarian practices of the military, in a systematic and a nationwide manner.” Contrasting recent examples of democratization in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan, Huang also notes the Burmese military has never really suffered serious internal rifts, which would have provided a possible opening to progressive groups.
Where does this leave the military now, more than three years after the coup and its horrifying aftermath? “I do believe this is probably a critical stage today, that the military is probably in one of its weakest positions compared to the last several decades,” he says. “That doesn't mean the military will necessarily collapse. I do hope the military does get out of politics at some stage. But I do think this is the most legitimate kind of challenge that the military state is facing in contemporary times.” He adds that as the soldiers have often followed lockstep in the direction of its leadership, that a fundamental change at the top—however unlikely that might be—would immediately be accepted throughout the ranks. “Until there is a genuine discussion within the military itself, until there's real consensus that their current direction is a wrong one, I don't think you'll see much change in the short near future.”