Myanmar (also known as Burma; see the discussion of terminology later in the chapter) has endured prolonged periods of military rule and hosts some of the world’s lengthiest internal conflicts. In the early 2010s, cautious hopes for democratic reform flared up on the local and international level, as the military initiated a top-down political transition process. These hopes were extinguished as the military continued to dominate the political landscape and terrorize the population, notably with its horrific violence against the Rohingya in 2017 and with a new military coup in 2021 and the subsequent violent repression of dissent. Throughout the long periods of military rule, the country has faced fierce contestation over political legitimacy and territorial control between the military and various armed and non-armed resistance groups. Burmese society, moreover, has historically been divided along the lines of ethnicity, class, age, gender, religion and rural or urban background. Diversity within the population gained political relevance when Burma was colonized by the British and during the subsequent independence struggle. Ethnic minorities, generally referred to in Myanmar as ‘ethnic nationalities’, make up over 30 per cent of the population and have borne the brunt of the military violence directed against populations in the border areas. The nominally socialist military government which took power in 1962 was confronted with a large-scale popular uprising, resulting in a military reshuffle in 1988. This era of military change-over marked the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi as leader of the political opposition; her party won the elections of 1990 but was not allowed to take power. Meanwhile, armed ethnic resistance continued in the borderlands, while a Burman-dominated ‘democracy movement’ was established, partly from exile, in the 1990s.

In 2003, the military announced its ‘Roadmap to Democracy’, which resulted in a new constitution in 2008 and elections held in 2010. These developments intensified existing debates around the desired future of the country and how this should be achieved. By the time a quasi-civilian government under President Thein Sein took power in 2011, Myanmar’s political transition had caught international attention. Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest just days after the 2010 elections and her re-entrance into national politics in 2012 increased international interest during what some call Myanmar’s ‘honeymoon period’.

This common joke refers to both political parties and civil society organizations (CSOs) in Myanmar. It demonstrates the vibrancy of associational life but also points towards the internal divisions that have arguably played into the military’s divide and rule tactics. This chapter explores what constitutes Burmese civil society over time, and what the various groups stand for. The concept of civil society is explored as it developed and became used in Myanmar after exposure to Western influences. Chapter 3 then introduces a number of fault lines in Myanmar society and analyses how they are reflected in civil society. Understanding diverse identities based on gender, age, class, education level and other characteristics is essential for the analysis of positions and contestations within civil society in the course of the political transition process. An additional factor discussed concerns the interaction between civil society actors based inside the country and those in exile. As with other factors, this ‘inside–outside’ division is not static, as activists moved in and out of the country in recent decades depending on the openness of political space over time. The way various civil society actors experienced and navigated this political space will be discussed in Chapter 4.

Tracing the ‘civil’ in civil society

As previously mentioned, civil society is a much used, but also much contested and criticized concept. On the most general level, it can help interpret how social relations and collective action take shape over time (Edwards, 2011). For practitioners and scientists, the concept often serves as a blanket term to cover various organized non-state actors and activities, leading to a possible conflation of analytical and policy goals (Lewis, 2001). The critical and systematic engagement with the theory and practice of civil society is complicated by overly simplistic expectations, based in Tocquevillian definitions and democracy promotion schemes. These concern civil society’s presumed positive role in society, its ability to criticize or check on the role of the state, and its counter-hegemonic qualities (Chambers and Kymlicka, 2002; Edwards, 2009). In contrast, Gramscian theorists are more likely to regard civil society as a sphere of contestation, exploitation and hegemony (Hedman, 2006; Glasius, 2012).

This chapter centres on the notion of ‘space’, or room to manoeuvre, for civil society under authoritarian rule. Under the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) government, Myanmar civil society actors operated in a very restricted political space. Many of them adapted to working under the radar of the government, while others refused to make concessions and faced regular repression, imprisonment and threats to their lives. In the course of the political transition, new opportunities opened up for civil society to get involved in politics and contribute to policy development. For others, including ethnic nationalities and vocal dissidents, room to manoeuvre remained limited, or even diminished. This created tensions within civil society over the nature of this new space, and the question of the extent to which civil society in transitional Myanmar could really operate independently from the government. This chapter and the next illustrate both sides of the debate. They show how the space experienced by various actors was determined by a number of factors including individual background and strategies to mobilize support, the location and timing of activities, and the language in which they were phrased.

While the whole military-led ‘Roadmap to Democracy’ was contentious, particular contestations emerged around the 2008 constitution and the referendum held in the days after cyclone Nargis, as well as the local and international humanitarian responses to the cyclone. Heated debates arose once elections were announced for 2010. The main political opposition decided to boycott the elections due to their unfair nature and the obstructions it faced to meaningful electoral participation. Others, particularly those affiliated with the previously mentioned Third Force, saw the elections as a unique opportunity to create political platforms outside the influence of the military. This chapter discusses the ruptures that occurred within Myanmar civil society as space opened up for some but closed down for others. The following chapters focus on the way these discussions were portrayed towards outside observers, with the 2010 elections as a specific case study.

While the previous chapter focused on room to manoeuvre for civil society under authoritarian rule, the following chapters describe how Myanmar civil society actors framed their advocacy messages towards an international audience in their search for political, moral and financial support. In contrast to the volatile ‘under the radar’ activities described earlier, the transnational advocacy activities of the democracy movement called for a clear and simple message concerning the social and political problems in Myanmar and the question of who was responsible and how such problems could be addressed. Social movement theory holds that human rights advocacy messages are only partly determined by factual situations and feasible solutions. Other factors, such as the susceptibility of the target audience to certain messages, also play a role.

In contrast to many actors working under the radar during Myanmar’s early years of transition, as well as the more open engagement attempts of the Third Force towards the military, representatives of the democracy movement continued to openly oppose the government. The distinction between proponents and opponents of engaging the government, moreover, became more pronounced as the political transition unfolded. The occurrence of cyclone Nargis in 2008 not only led to a gradual emancipation of civil society actors based inside the country, but also resulted in the emergence of contrasting ‘frames’ about the benefits of distributing local aid. These frames became even more noticeable after elections had been announced for 2010, which further polarized both the political and the civil society landscape. Parallel to developments in the political sphere, those affiliated with the Third Force chose to call for participation in the elections, while those affiliated with the democracy movement boycotted the elections. This dichotomy was accentuated as both proponents and opponents of the elections attempted to reach out to the international community to influence foreign positions towards the Myanmar government. The contestations around the 2010 elections will be discussed in Chapter 6.

Although the elections formed the focal point of the disagreement over the government’s ‘Roadmap to Democracy’, some of the varying frames had already become visible in earlier debates. These include the question of economic sanctions, the evaluation of the 2008 constitution and the distribution of aid in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis.

With the exception of 2011–20, Burma/Myanmar has the questionable honour of being the longest running military dictatorship in the world. The consecutive military governments that came to power in 1962 and 1988 were each known for their severe human rights violations, and the military leadership that took power in the 2021 coup has even surpassed their violent legacies. This chapter provides a brief historical overview, explaining how contestations over territory, political structures and ethnic minority rights have been recurring since before colonial independence and provided a motive for the military to continue its rule. Pre-existing tensions as a result of ethnic diversity had been exacerbated during British colonialism, which ended in 1948, and were far from solved when a military coup in 1962 brought an end to the recently established parliamentary democracy. Nationalist sentiments intensified as ethnic nationalities struggled for self-determination, while Buddhist nationalism also surfaced periodically, re-appearing in the course of the political transition period that started in 2010. Respective periods of nation building resulted in both extensive military rule and the search for a Burman Buddhist identity at the expense of indigenous minorities.

British colonialism and nationalist resistance

Between 1824 and 1886, the British took control of the territory now known as Myanmar during three Anglo-Burmese wars and engaged in violent pacification campaigns towards the local population. The Burmans, in turn, had come to dominate the earlier inhabitants of the territory, including the Karen and the Mon (Harvey, 1925; Lieberman, 1984). Burma initially became part of British India and from 1937 was a separate colony. In their efforts to formally map territorial boundaries, the British brought together a number of previously unaffiliated ethnic and linguistic groups. A division was created between the central area inhabited by the majority Burman population and the current ethnic states in the border areas, where bureaucratic rule by the British remained largely absent. The colonizers brought in staff for administrative positions from elsewhere and treated Burma as a less advanced and less profitable part of British India, which increasingly upset the Burmese population. In her book Making Enemies, Mary Callahan (2003) describes how the indigenous population was treated as an internal threat to colonial rule rather than inhabitants entitled to protection and inclusion in institution building.

As part of the military’s ‘Roadmap to Democracy’, elections were scheduled for 2010. Once the date of 7 November was announced in August that year, a framing contest around the elections took off. Those who saw the elections as an opportunity made a strategic decision to emphasize the political and societal changes inside the country, while opponents chose to emphasize the lack of significant political change and the need to maintain pressure on the government. Both camps drew selectively on ‘marketing strategies’ to emphasize their points and steer developments in the desired direction. Moreover, both parties claimed to act for the larger good of the country in advancing their preferred strategies towards democratization. For foreigners, too, the ‘in-between’ position became ‘both more appealing and less tenable amid the polarization surrounding the 2010 elections’ (Metro, 2011: 10). Those who were optimistic about the increased space granted by the government were not alone in their expectation that the elections would bring about further change: research on Malaysia two years earlier, for example, shows that elections may offer unique opportunities for political engagement by civil society in repressive environments, and may lead to a re-assessment of relationships between politicians, the state and the people (Lee et al, 2010). For many people in Myanmar, the 2010 elections would be the first time they could vote at all, thus providing an opportunity to discuss politics more openly in the context of voter education (Lidauer, 2012).

Yet the 2010 elections and the surrounding controversies also provided a unique opportunity for those opposing the military government to campaign against its political framework. In the course of 2010, a large election boycott campaign emerged consisting of two elements: a domestic component, calling on people inside the country not to vote (though there was some confusion as to the actual goal of the campaign, as discussed subsequently), and an international component, calling on other governments not to acknowledge the election results as legitimate. Although an election boycott by opposition parties is not uncommon in politically restrictive environments (Kagwanja, 2005; Beaulieu, 2006), the campaign in Myanmar was additionally characterized by a high level of involvement by civil society organizations (CSOs) that took the opportunity to publicize their goals.