How Generation Z Galvanized a Revolutionary Movement against Myanmar’s 2021 Military Coup

How Generation Z Galvanized a Revolutionary Movement against Myanmar’s 2021 Military Coup
Author: Ingrid Jordt
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2021-05-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814951749

On 1 February 2021, under the command of General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military initiated a coup, apparently drawing to a close Myanmar’s ten-year experiment with democratic rule. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were arrested along with other elected officials. Mass protests against the coup ensued, led by Gen Z youths who shaped a values-based democratic revolutionary movement that in character is anti-military regime, anti-China influence, anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, and anti-sexist. Women and minorities have been at the forefront, organizing protests, shaping campaigns, and engaging sectors of society that in the past had been relegated to the periphery of national politics. The protests were broadcast to local and international audiences through social media. Simultaneously, a civil disobedience movement (CDM) arose in the shape of a massive strike mostly led by civil servants. CDM is non-violent and acephalous, a broad “society against the state” movement too large and diffuse for the military to target and dismantle. Semi-autonomous administrative zones in the name of Pa-a-pha or civil administrative organizations emerged out of spontaneously organized neighbourhood watches at the ward and village levels, effectively forming a parallel governance system to the military state. Anti-coup protests moved decisively away from calls for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected political leaders, or for a return to democracy under the 2008 constitution. Instead, it evolved towards greater inclusivity of all Myanmar peoples in pursuit of a more robust federal democracy. A group of fifteen elected parliamentarians, representing the ideals of Gen Z youths, formed a shadow government called the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) on 5 February 2021. On 1 March the CRPH declared the military governing body, the State Administrative Council (SAC), a “terrorist group”, and on 31 March, it declared the military’s 2008 constitution abolished. Gen Z’s protests have accomplished what has been elusive to prior generations of anti-regime movements and uprisings. They have severed the Bamar Buddhist nationalist narrative that has gripped state society relations and the military’s ideological control over the political landscape, substituting for it an inclusive democratic ideology.

The Military in Burma/Myanmar

The Military in Burma/Myanmar
Author: David I Steinberg
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2021-05-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814951722

The Myanmar military has dominated that complex country for most of the period since independence in 1948. The fourth coup of 1 February 2021 was the latest by the military to control those aspects of society it deemed essential to its own interests, and its perception of state interests. The military’s institutional power was variously maintained by rule by decree, through political parties it founded and controlled, and through constitutional provisions it wrote that could not be amended without its approval. This fourth coup seems a product of personal demands for power between Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, and the especially humiliating defeat of the military-backed party at the hands of the National League for Democracy in the November 2020 elections. The violent and bloody suppression of widespread demonstrations continues, compromise seems unlikely, and the previous diarchic governance will not return. Myanmar’s political and economic future is endangered and suppression will only result in future outbreaks of political frustration.

Defect Or Defend

Defect Or Defend
Author: Terence Lee
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2015
Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
ISBN: 142141516X

Why do certain militaries brutally suppress popular demonstrations, while others support the path to political liberalization by backing mass social movements? Although social movements and media can help destabilize authoritarian governments, not all social protest is effective or culminates in the toppling of dictatorships. Frequently, the military’s response determines the outcome. In Defect or Defend, Terence Lee uses four case studies from Asia to provide insight into the military’s role during the transitional phase of regime change. Lee compares popular uprisings in the Philippines and Indonesia—both of which successfully engaged military support to bring down authoritarian rule—with protest movements in China and Burma which were violently suppressed by military forces. Lee’s theory of “high personalism” and power-sharing among the armed forces leadership provides a framework for understanding the critical transitory phases of democratization. He uses this theory to review and assess Eastern Europe’s democratization events in 1989, the Colored Revolutions of the early 2000s, and the protests and revolutions unfolding in the Middle East. This book will appeal to students and scholars of comparative politics, Asian studies, security studies, and international relations, as well as defense policymakers.

Twitter and Tear Gas

Twitter and Tear Gas
Author: Zeynep Tufekci
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2017-05-16
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0300228171

A firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements’ greatest strengths and frequent challenges To understand a thwarted Turkish coup, an anti–Wall Street encampment, and a packed Tahrir Square, we must first comprehend the power and the weaknesses of using new technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today’s social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests—how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change. Tufekci speaks from direct experience, combining on-the-ground interviews with insightful analysis. She describes how the internet helped the Zapatista uprisings in Mexico, the necessity of remote Twitter users to organize medical supplies during Arab Spring, the refusal to use bullhorns in the Occupy Movement that started in New York, and the empowering effect of tear gas in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These details from life inside social movements complete a moving investigation of authority, technology, and culture—and offer essential insights into the future of governance.

Myanmar

Myanmar
Author: Nick Cheesman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2023-10-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108605400

This Element is a critical inquiry into how words animate politics. It offers readers venues in which to consider the history and contingency of ideas like power, race, patriarchy and revolution of Myanmar.

Roots of the State

Roots of the State
Author: Benjamin Read
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2012-04-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804782032

Most social science studies of local organizations tend to focus on "civil society" associations, voluntary associations independent from state control, whereas government-sponsored organizations tend to be theorized in totalitarian terms as "mass organizations" or manifestations of state corporatism. Roots of the State examines neighborhood associations in Beijing and Taipei that occupy a unique space that exists between these concepts. Benjamin L. Read views the work of the neighborhood associations he studies as a form of "administrative grassroots engagement." States sponsor networks of organizations at the most local of levels, and the networks facilitate governance and policing by building personal relationships with members of society. Association leaders serve as the state's designated liaisons within the neighborhood and perform administrative duties covering a wide range of government programs, from welfare to political surveillance. These partly state-controlled entities also provide a range of services to their constituents. Neighborhood associations, as institutions initially created to control societies, may underpin a repressive regime such as China's, but they also can evolve to empower societies, as in Taiwan. This book engages broad and much-discussed questions about governance and political participation in both authoritarian and democratic regimes.

Relational peace practices

Relational peace practices
Author: Anna Jarstad
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2023-05-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1526168952

This book presents a new approach for studying peace beyond the absence of war. As war ends, the varying nature of the peace that ensues has been the object of much debate. Through in-depth case studies, including Cyprus, Cambodia, South Africa, Abkhazia, Transnistria/Russia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Myanmar, the book illustrates how conceptualising ‘relational peace’ provides a framework that can be applied across cases and actors, different levels of analysis, a variety of geographical contexts and using different temporal perspectives and types of data. This novel framework enables improved empirical studies of peace. The book contributes nuanced understandings of peace in particular settings and demonstrates the multifaceted nature of peaceful relations – what is termed ‘relational peace practices’ – making important contributions to the field of studying peace beyond the absence of war.

"Good Coup" Gone Bad

Author: Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014-06-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814459607

What did the 2006 military coup show us? It demonstrated that the crux of the Thai crisis is far more serious and much wider in scope than had previously been thought. The monarchy is surely not a victim in the protracted conflict, but the root cause and continuing factor that has eroded Thai politics. The coup set in motion more prejudicial uses of the lèse-majesté law, and in the process, has led to more political prisoners. It has also shredded the military into several segments, turning generals into desperate royalists who continue to live off the monarchy in order to survive. Issues of violence in the Thai south and the Thai-Cambodian dispute became greatly intensified in the age of militarized politics. The coup also produced unique colour-coded politics and created crises of legitimacy. This book is a collection of essays that reflect developments in Thai politics in the post-coup period.

Outsourcing the Polity

Outsourcing the Polity
Author: Gerard McCarthy
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2023-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501767984

Outsourcing the Polity offers a new account of social outsourcing in post-independence Myanmar, demonstrating how the bankrupt post-socialist junta mediated market reform in the 1990s and 2000s and forced private and non-state actors to take the burden for social welfare. Informed by research during Myanmar's decade of partial civilian rule (2011–2021), Gerard McCarthy examines how ideals and practices of non-state welfare can both sustain democratic resistance and undermine social reform over time. Rather than expand government-led social action funded by direct taxation, grassroots activists and democratic leaders after 2011 variously framed government social action as ineffective, undesirable, and even corrosive of civic norms. They instead encouraged citizens to be "self-reliant" and support each other, including during disasters. Powerful tycoons filled the social gap, using public philanthropy to remake their reputations and to defend their ongoing expropriation of land and state assets from potential democratic redistribution. With non-state social actors more important than ever following Myanmar's return to dictatorship in 2021, Outsourcing the Polity casts new light on the lasting legacies of outsourcing for distributive politics.