TY - JOUR

T1 - Democratic backsliding disrupted

T2 - The role of digitalized resistance in Myanmar

AU - Ryan, Megan

AU - Tran, Mai Van

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - More than one year since its coup, the Myanmar military has neither established effective control of the territory nor crushed online dissent. What factors have enabled the resistance forces to deny the consolidation of military rule? We address this question by building a novel theoretical framework that incorporates the role of long-standing digitalized pro-democracy activism and conducting a mixed-method analysis that includes an original, largely representative sample of public Facebook posts in post-coup Myanmar. We find that the development of online and hybrid pro-democracy activism against digital abuse and other illiberal policies under previous quasi-civilian governments enabled anti-coup resistance forces to thwart the military’s attempt of authoritarian revival in 2021. Our research findings deepen understanding of Myanmar’s post-coup contestation dynamics as well as other cases of unpopular autocratization in the current-day digital era.

AB - More than one year since its coup, the Myanmar military has neither established effective control of the territory nor crushed online dissent. What factors have enabled the resistance forces to deny the consolidation of military rule? We address this question by building a novel theoretical framework that incorporates the role of long-standing digitalized pro-democracy activism and conducting a mixed-method analysis that includes an original, largely representative sample of public Facebook posts in post-coup Myanmar. We find that the development of online and hybrid pro-democracy activism against digital abuse and other illiberal policies under previous quasi-civilian governments enabled anti-coup resistance forces to thwart the military’s attempt of authoritarian revival in 2021. Our research findings deepen understanding of Myanmar’s post-coup contestation dynamics as well as other cases of unpopular autocratization in the current-day digital era.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - democratic backsliding

KW - autocratization

KW - military coup

KW - digital repression

KW - anti-coup resistance

KW - digital activism

KW - Myanmar

U2 - 10.1177/20578911221125511

DO - 10.1177/20578911221125511

M3 - Journal article

VL - 9

SP - 133

EP - 158

JO - Asian Journal of Comparative Politics

JF - Asian Journal of Comparative Politics

SN - 2057-8911

IS - 1

ER -