No Regime Change in Myanmar, So Far: Exploring the Conceptual Chains between Civil Resistance and Junta Repression

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar incited widespread civil resistance, including mass street protests, a civil disobedience movement, labour strikes and armed rebellions. Despite more than three years of conflict, the junta maintains power in certain areas of the country. This article employs an outcome-explaining, process-tracing approach to elucidate the junta's persistence. The analysis reveals that civil resistance activities are highly fragmented, with minimal convergence in their operations or long-term visions. This fragmentation stems from divergent views within the movement regarding non-violent versus armed resistance and the varied objectives of different armed ethnic organizations opposing the military. Concurrently, the junta has bolstered its repressive capabilities by developing institutionalized methods for countering adversarial forces. These methods are deeply intertwined with Myanmar's ethnic- political history and the military's entrenched dominance over political institutions. Consequently, this article contends that the evolution of both resistance efforts and the junta's repressive strategies has been markedly asymmetrical.