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The New Configuration of Power
Abstract
Even though Burma’s military seems to have accepted the NLD’s stunning election victory, it can still use an array of constitutional provisions to hamstring the incoming NLD government. © 2016 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press.
... However, David Williams argues that 'disciplined democracy is especially ill-suited to Burma because of its dispositions to over-concentrate power ' (2014: 118). Reforming the 2008 constitution has thus been a priority for the National League of Democracy (NLD) (Zin 2016), who have held that without constitutional amendments and genuine rule of law, the democratic opening will be mere 'window-dressing'. In 2014, the NLD and the civil society organization 88 Generation collected more than 5 million signatures in support of constitutional change. ...
... These three sources of state legitimacy are also at the core of the legitimacy claims made by political parties, although with differing weight ascribed to each. During the 2015 election campaign, the USDP relied on its claimed ability to secure stability and deliver economic improvements (Zin 2016) -in contrast to the NLD's primary focus on democracy, human rights and constitutional reform. Bamar and Buddhist identities were implied, but neither the NLD nor the USDP explicitly emphasized Bamar/Buddhist nationalism (Thawnghmung 2016a). ...
... The core structure of military state power is institutionalized through the 2008 Constitution, making constitutional change a primary concern for substantive democratization. Today the challenge in Myanmar is not state building, but building democratic politics that can substantially transform civil-military relations, central-local (majority-minority) relations, and state-society relations (Blaževič 2016;Zin 2016). ...
Myanmar may for a long time remain in a transitional state with an uncertain future. After a series of political and economic liberalization reforms from 2011 onwards, Myanmar’s political trajectory remains open-ended, although the most plausible scenario remains a continued slow democratization process. The democratic opening has been driven largely by the interest of the military rulers in changing Myanmar’s relations with Western states and thereby gaining leverage vis-à-vis China. Continued military influence, persistent capacity problems in political parties and parliamentary politics, weak channels of political representation and limited administrative capacity give rise to critical questions about the substance of democratization and economic development in Myanmar. The country’s informal economy is one of the largest in the world and is upheld by informal elite pacts that were formed in the military era, often involving high-ranking officers and crony companies. Along with a high level of corruption and lack of redistributive mechanisms the continuing cronyism hinders inclusive growth. If these economic structures persist, social and ethnic conflicts may intensify and progress towards further democratization stall. Despite this, foreign direct investments in resource extraction and other sectors have been on the rise since 2011 and are likely to continue. Myanmar is also ranked as the world’s second-most vulnerable country to climate change. The government needs a better understanding of climate change and its effects – both its direct impacts on Myanmar and its indirect impacts via neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh. As Myanmar remains at a crossroads, smart external assistance may have greater long-term impact in Myanmar than in other recipient countries where the situation is less volatile. However, donors may also become increasingly frustrated and reduce their assistance because of the ongoing Rohingya crisis and because of the limited local capacity to absorb international assistance.
... This, however, changed with Aung San Suu Kyi's growing involvement in parliamentary affairs since 2012 and her attempts to change the 2008 constitution. For instance, in August 2015, when Shwe Mann openly sided with Aung San Suu Kyi and agreed to change the constitution, the Ministry of Home Affairs, under direct control of the military, sent some 400 police officers to remove Shwe Mann from the position as Chairman of the USDP (Min Zin, 2016). 7 This 'party coup' not only highlighted the military's dissatisfaction with the emerging alliance between the former general and the opposition leader, but also the deep divisions within the USDP party leadership. ...
... Industry Minister Soe Thein, Railway Minister Aung Min and Zaw Min. 7. Another reason for the party coup was that Shwe Mann refused to place 150 military officers on the USDP party list for the November 2015 elections. Among those rejected were Thein Sein's and Min Aung Hlaing's supporters (Zin Min, 2016). 8. ...
Although Myanmar's transition from military rule has been thoroughly studied, research into the evolving presidential system is lacking. This article maps Myanmar's unique hybrid form of presidentialism and characterises executive-legislative relations between 2012 and 2017. It not only examines institutions themselves but also explores how actors within them have acted and shifted strategically. It is argued that elite-behaviour determines how institutions work. Myanmar's 2008 constitution imposed by the military established a hybrid presidential system with a formally powerful president. The first phase under President Thein Sein saw competitive yet cooperative executive-legislative relations between President Thein Sein and the ambitious House Speaker Shwe Mann, both members of the former military regime. However, this power-sharing arrangement of former members of the military regime became increasingly fragile with the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi and her attempt to change the 2008 constitution. After the election victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the passage of the state counsellor law, a de facto semi-presidential system was established – Burmese style. Since then, the frontline has been between the civilian and military parts of the administration.
... The aforementioned transition in Myanmar can for example be seen as a strategically (Blaževič, 2016;Zin, 2016). ...
Democracy has attained a hegemonic position both as a normative ideal and as the dominant form of government, but there are growing concerns about democratic decline and crisis. The numerical growth of democracies has slowed down, and there have been some reversals from democratic to authoritarian rule in recent years. Nevertheless, the primary concern is about the substance of formal democracies, especially as recent democratic transitions have tended to produce depoliticized democracies and hybrid forms of rule rather than substantive democracy. This article uses the growth and decline of democracy as an occasion to review the current state of democracy in the world, discusses the links between the modality of democratic transition and problems of post‐transition democratic substance, and examines competing approaches to democratic deepening. A case is made for shifting the perspective on democratization, from democratic transitions to the open‐ended politics of substantial democratization. This means that the analytical approach should be broadened from elitist institutional design for electoral democracy to transformative democratic politics. The article presents this line of argument and provides brief illustrations based on recent transitions in the Global South.
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won another landslide victory in the 2020 general election. Although there was widespread dissatisfaction with the government's poor management of the economy and ethnic conflicts, as well as with the pre-electoral coordination of ethnic parties in several states, opposition and ethnic-based parties had failed to gain more seats. Previous explanations had focused on the economy, electoral system bias, weak party institutionalization, and vote splitting among ethnic parties; however, they underestimated the significance of two contextual factors: military dominance of politics and ethnic conflict. This article argues that military dominance hindered normal political development in Myanmar. The anti-military sentiment favored the NLD, which made most Bamar voters disregard the party's poor economic performance. Despite the electoral system's bias, prolonged ethnic conflicts made ethnic parties that had fought for their community's causes more likely to maintain support. These arguments are verified by survey and electoral data sets. The military nullified the 2020 election claiming that electoral fraud was to blame, but the findings indicate that it was the political environment the military created that led to the victory of the NLD and some ethnic parties in the first place.
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