Reforms, Protest, and Repression in Democratic Transition: A Hypothesis-Generating Case Study from Myanmar (2011-2015)

Abstract

Existing scholarship lacks important knowledge about how protest and coercion change during regime change. This study provides new evidence by studying legal reforms as well as patterns of protest and repression during the first 46 months of Myanmar’s regime change. By examining law amendments and analyzing protest data compiled via a protest event analysis from local news resources, it can be shown that the de jure exercisability and de facto exercise of protest have changed considerably over time. Informal repression of protest, such as by arbitrary violence, have gradually made way for methods that are formally in accordance with the rule of law, but remained inconsistent with human rights standards. Additionally, repression has become more selective, demonstrating a continuous high state control over the civil society. I suggest that the observed changes may be general features of elite-controlled transitions to competitive authoritarianism, a hypothesis that merits future cross-national research.