Abstract
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, known as Burma prior to 1989, is one of the ethnically most heterogeneous societies in Southeast Asia with 135 officially recognized nationalities. Two inextricably linked challenges characterize politics and society in Myanmar since independence in 1948. The first one concerns state-building and nation-building in a post-colonial plural society. The other concerns the persistence of a praetorian state in which the Burmese Armed Forces (Tatmadaw) dominates politics, the economy, and society. To understand this twin problematique, this chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Myanmar’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments. A particular focus is on the failure of the military-initiated process of gradual disengagement from day-to-day politics from 2011 to 2021. The chapter analyzes the structures, processes and actors of Myanmar’s semi-democratic electoral authoritarianism, the shortcomings and failures of democratic reforms as well as the causes and consequences of the most military coup d’état of February 2021.
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Notes
- 1.
In Bamar language, “Burma” is used as a colloquial term for the country and its citizens, whereas “Myanmar” is the more formal version of this name Zöllner (2000, p. 30). Members of the largest ethnic group are referred to as “Bamar” or “Burmans”, while “Burmese” or “Myanmarese” refers to all of the citizens of Burma/Myanmar.
- 2.
The number of units as per General Administration Department (GAD), December 2019 (www.gad.gov.mm).
- 3.
The numbers symbolize the nine attributes of Buddha, the six elements of Buddhist teachings, and the nine attributes of the sangha (ICG, 2013).
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Croissant, A. (2022). Myanmar: Political Conflict and the Survival of the Praetorian State. In: Comparative Politics of Southeast Asia. Springer Texts in Political Science and International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05114-2_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05114-2_7
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