Commentary | Sai Latt, Prospect for Democratic Change and Authoritarian Continuity in Myanmar
"The more things change, the more they stay the same"
("plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”).
as cited in Moghaddam, 2024
1. Introduction
Since assuming the presidency in April 2026, former coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has sought to normalize external relations. He has visited ASEAN countries, including Thailand and Malaysia, where he received formal state welcomes. Meanwhile, the US has initiated re-engagement with Nay Pyi Taw. These renewed engagements complement the junta’s ties with China, India, and Russia, which it has maintained since the coup. Domestically, he has accelerated the implementation of his political roadmap, including carefully orchestrated constitutional amendments, peace negotiations with selected armed groups, publicized crackdowns on scam centers, and efforts to recover territories lost during Operation 1027 in 2023 and 2024.
These developments have led observers to ask whether the resistance movement is facing a setback. Yet, viewing the current situation as a setback stems from an initial expectation that success was inevitable. A critical reflection on Myanmar from a long-term perspective raises a different question: even if the military regime collapses, will its successors be democratic?
This commentary argues that the anti-military movement remains focused on replacing the existing authoritarian regime with a democratic alternative, without a sufficient agenda for transforming the political culture that has sustained authoritarianism. As such, the movement risks reproducing new forms of authoritarian rule even if the junta collapses.
2. Fighting Authoritarian Regimes or Authoritarianism?
Scholars of revolutionary movements argue that authoritarianism can survive regime change and that new regimes born out of armed resistance can become durable (Moghaddam, 2024; Levitsky & Way, 2022). For Myanmar’s resistance, this raises a critical question: are we fighting authoritarian rulers or the authoritarian system itself?
Recent political narratives have called for system change rather than merely regime change, although political actions remain focused on removing the military regime. This approach is reflected in the narrative of eliminating the common enemy first, which has shaped political actions and military operations during the last six years. Statements, political speeches, and signed agreements among resistance actors emphasize ending military rule, establishing a federal democratic union, changing the constitution, and protecting civilians. While these priorities are indispensable, they overlook the deeper societal changes required to dismantle authoritarianism itself.
In The Psychology of Revolution, Fathali Moghaddam (2024) notes that many revolutionary movements focus on surface-level changes, such as amending certain constitutional provisions, designing new parliamentary or presidential systems, enacting economic policies, and so on. Deep-level changes, such as leader-follower relations, wealth distribution, nationalism, and inequality, remain unaddressed. In a sense, as Moghaddam says, “Psychology is at the heart of revolutions” and yet “in the most important ways nothing of importance has actually changed.” This psychological and behavioral continuity results in post-revolutionary regimes becoming yet another form of authoritarian rule. Viewed from this perspective, Myanmar’s resistance movement needs to confront authoritarian values embedded not only in the military but also in wider society. This requires changes in psychology and behaviour, not just political positions or structures.
Writing after the 1962 military coup, the late Myanmar scholar Maung Maung Gyi (1983, p.3) noted that “The right soil for the growth of an authoritarian system reminiscent of native Burmese monarchical rule was already there in the society.” His argument was that authoritarianism in Myanmar was not simply a product of military intervention or institutional failure, but was deeply rooted in historical, social, and cultural values that had survived successive changes of political regimes.
His classic study may be critiqued from today’s perspective, particularly for coming close to cultural determinism and treating societal dynamics in terms of a homogeneous Bama ethnicity. As Ardeth Thawnghmung (2004) notes, people's acceptance of authority may depend on everyday experiences and practical judgment under constraints such as fear and limited alternatives. However, Maung Maung Gyi still directs attention to how the historical continuity of authoritarian rule is connected to generational learning in families, schools, religious teachings, and communities, where authority is normalized and reproduced through fear, punishment, and obedience.
Contemporary writers including Sai Kyi Zin Soe (2026), Thantun Soe (2025), Sai Latt (2025), Nyi Nyi Kyaw (2024), Min Thaty (2023), and Moe Htet Nay (2021) have examined these patterns from different perspectives. Despite the risk of being misinterpreted as undermining the “pro-democracy” movement, they highlight prevailing sociocultural patterns that have implications for contemporary politics. Kyal Sin Thukha and Zin Mar Phyo (2024) and Aung Zaw Myo (2023) also show how patriarchal gender norms, militarized masculinity, and homophobia persist within the resistance movement (alongside efforts to challenge them).
Across these studies, recurring concerns include personalized power, hierarchical social relations characterized by obedience and patron-client relationships, patriarchal decision-making, a zero-sum approach to conflict, and the tendency to treat opponents as traitors or enemies rather than recognizing disagreements as legitimate differences that can be addressed through compromise.
3. Prospects for Continuity
The studies above call for closer examination of what the resistance is seeking to change and what it continues to reproduce. The concern is not simply that authoritarian behaviors exist within the movement, but that familiar ways of thinking and organizing political power may allow authoritarianism to survive the removal of military rulers. The following two examples illustrate this risk.
3.1. Thinking Patterns
On the first anniversary of the military coup, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing reiterated the decades-old narratives about unity and domestic self-reliance. He said, “The strength of our country within us [sic]. We believe and rely on the internal strength of our country.”
On the resistance side, one of the mobilizing narratives is “we only have ourselves,” an idea that became a powerful campaign slogan. The emphasis on self-reliance is crucial in the face of the junta’s violence and international neglect. Although shared language by itself does not demonstrate authoritarian continuity, it still points to continuity in patterns of thinking. It also warrants closer examination alongside other patterns, including the prioritization of military strength and exclusionary understandings of national belonging, which together may reproduce familiar political values and practices.
Many social influencers and organizers of the Myanmar Spring movement believe that armed resistance is the only remaining option. As Dr. Sasa, then a spokesperson for the National Unity Government, said, “The people of Myanmar have been left with no other choice.” Similarly, many view attempts at negotiated solutions as unviable and as undermining the movement, as reflected in the popular slogan “no negotiation for blood debt.” They argue that armed resistance groups must be strengthened and prioritized to win the revolution. Min Ko Naing, a prominent leader of the 1988 uprising who actively campaigns for the post-coup Myanmar Spring movement, reinforces this emphasis by stating that “The victory of the revolution depends on finances” while announcing plans to fund essential weapons for revolutionary forces. This position resembles the military’s propaganda message, promoted since the 1990s, that the nation will be strong only when the military is strong.
Another noticeable theme is the movement’s continued reliance on the framework of 135 officially recognized ethnic categories. Those outside this framework, including Rohingya and people of Chinese and South Asian descent, are consequently marginalized within the movement and its vision of a future federal union, as if they are second- or third-class citizens (Aung Ko Ko et al., 2023).
3.2. Political Choices and Actions
In terms of political actions and choices, there are striking parallels between the present and earlier periods of resistance. One example is the recurring approach to establishing political structures. Shaped by “the same logic and dynamics”, resistance actors in both the 1988–2010 and post-2021 pro-democracy movements established similar political structures. That is, following the 1988 military coup, opposition leaders established the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) in 1990 as a government in exile. The National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) followed in 1992 as a broader opposition coalition, while the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP) was formed inside the country in 1998 to represent the elected parliament.
After the 2021 coup, a comparable institutional arrangement emerged: the National Unity Government (NUG) as a parallel government, the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) as a collective political platform, and the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) as a parliamentary representative body. Their composition, authority, and operating contexts differ, but the parallels in institutional form are noticeable.
Then as now, tensions involved political representation, resistance strategies, and the relationship between the Bamar majority’s emphasis on democratization and ethnic minority groups’ priorities of federalism, self-determination, and equality. Reading documents from that period alongside contemporary debates gives a strong sense of recurring narratives, institutional choices, and unresolved disagreements.
The comparison extends further back into the early post-independence period. At a press conference in 1953, the general secretary of the Ethnic Nationality Council (taing-yin-thar-lu-myo-su-council) delivered a statement calling for urgent ethnic unity, citing perceived threats from external powers, including Chinese actors (ENC, 1953). The statement also supported the demands of the Chin, Mon, and Rakhine peoples to designate their respective territories as provincial states. These arguments bear comparison with later demands for states of their own by political organizations groups including the Pa-O, Shanni, Wa, and Ta’ang, the never-ending attempts to achieve ethnic unity, and an obsession with constitutional drafting.
With some names, dates, and terminology updated, parts of the transcript could read like a contemporary political statement by some of the leading ethnic councils. Seventy-three years after that press conference, the persistence of these themes raises questions about why successive generations, including both military rulers and revolutionary actors, continue to reproduce similar political dilemmas.
Concerns about authoritarian practices within the democratic opposition are not new. NCGUB’s leadership culture was criticized for revolving around a charismatic leader and operating through “a military filter” (deference to authority, hierarchy, and reliance on a powerful leader). NCUB’s secretary-general was also criticized for “a do-it-alone, authoritarian style that favors direct action over consensus building.” Military authoritarian patterns also appeared within armed resistance organizations. The Truth and Justice Committee of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), a student army formed after the 1988 uprising, investigated the massacre at its northern camp in the early 1990s. It found that “there was less space for questioning decisions and little tolerance for those who were lax about camp rules.” The report also documented how concentrated military authority, harsh punishments, and internal surveillance created conditions for torture and extrajudicial killings in 1991–1992.
More than five years after the 2021 coup, allegations of authoritarian behavior within the resistance movement are increasingly coming to light. Athan, a civil society organization promoting freedom of expression, released a report in October 2026 documenting how some revolutionary authorities, both Bamar and ethnic armed groups, suppress criticism by portraying it as undermining the revolution, benefiting the enemy, or threatening military security. Its findings also identify weak accountability, threats against critics, and restrictions on information. As with earlier generations of resistance discussed above, these practices suggest that fighting military dictatorship does not necessarily mean challenging authoritarian practices and does not automatically prevent revolutionary organizations from reproducing authoritarian ways of exercising power.
Practices that reproduce authoritarian behaviours demand an uncomfortable political reality check: what is the point of a revolution built on the sacrifices of millions of Myanmar people who have willingly risked their lives, livelihoods, dignity, and futures? More seriously, would a failure to overcome authoritarianism, after imposing enormous costs on the people, amount to destroying people’s lives and futures by other means, in the name of a revolution for democracy, much as the junta has done in the name of “building a genuine discipline-flourishing multiparty democratic system”?
4. Conclusion
Nearly six years after the 2021 coup and more than 60 years after the 1962 coup, Myanmar’s resistance must confront the uncomfortable reality that defeating the military will not by itself produce democracy. More than four decades ago, Maung Maung Gyi pointed out that authoritarianism was not simply a matter of institutional failure but is embedded in society. Since the 2021 coup, few contemporary researchers have pointed out how these values and practices persist, shaping current political behaviors in ways that will undermine democratic practices.
For now, it appears that while the political struggle focuses on removing the authoritarian regime in Nay Pyi Taw, people continue to reproduce authoritarian values and behaviors in their own homes, communities, and workplaces. Whoever comes to power in government or the military, or takes up positions in public service, is likely to reproduce authoritarian leadership, regardless of whether they belong to the military or the “pro-democracy” camp.
Maung Maung Gyi stated decades ago that identifying defects in political culture should not be confused with disparaging an entire nation. Today, highlighting the movement’s failure to take seriously the transformation of deeply rooted values, thought patterns, and behaviors should not be interpreted as betraying the revolution. Rather, such criticisms serve as an early warning and a call for timely action towards a hopeful societal transformation that challenges authoritarianism beyond the removal of authoritarian rulers.
As Erich Fromm (1968) argues in The Revolution of Hope, hope is neither passive waiting nor unrealistic expectations of change, but an active commitment to recognizing possibilities and working towards their realization. From this perspective, the hope for a democratic Myanmar should not rest on the expectation that the collapse of the military regime will inevitably bring democracy. Rather, it requires conscious efforts to challenge and transform the authoritarian values, mindsets, and practices that have been reproduced across generations. Only then can the struggle move beyond replacing authoritarian rulers towards overcoming authoritarianism itself.
References:
ENC (Ethnic Nationalities Council). 1953. Why Ethnic Unity Is Important Today. Statement delivered in Burmese at a press conference in Yangon, November 12.
Fromm, Erich. 1968. The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology. New York: Harper & Row.
Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2022. Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Maung Maung Gyi. 1983. Burmese Political Values: The Socio-Political Roots of Authoritarianism. New York: Praeger.
Min Thayt. 2023. A Yaing Bamar: The Socio-political Life of Barbarian Tribe in Burma. [Publication location unavailable].
Moghaddam, Fathali M. 2024. The Psychology of Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thawnghmung, Ardeth M. (2004). Behind the teak curtain: Authoritarianism, agricultural policies and political legitimacy in rural Burma/Myanmar. Kegan Paul.
Sai Latt is the Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative (CSEASI) Visiting Scholar at York University and a Research Affiliate with the Regional Center for Social Sciences and Sustainable Development (RCSD) at Chiang Mai University.
To cite this essay, please use the bibliographic entry suggested below:
Sai Latt, “Prospect for Democratic Change and Authoritarian Continuity in Myanmar,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, November 13, 2026; https://doi.org/10.52698/PAEF1409.