New development: Myanmar’s civil service—Responsible disobedience during the 2021 military coup

Abstract

IMPACT

The question of civil service responsibility and possible disobedience is of fundamental importance for the public sector, and the more government legitimacy is publicly doubted, the more relevant it becomes. The reaction of Myanmar civil servants via a large-scale, fundamental disobedience movement is noteworthy in its own right as a real-life case of what is possible, regionally in South-East Asia, and globally in that it renews and sharpens the question civil servants must continuously ask themselves regarding what their responsibility vis-à-vis government and citizens actually is.

ABSTRACT

Myanmar’s civil servants have responded to the February 2021 military coup with a resistance movement that seems globally unprecedented in intensity and scale. For the ongoing debate about responsibility, disobedience, and resistance in the public sector, this is a crucial case in that it demonstrates how far civil servants can go to resist the hostile takeover of a government. This article describes the coup and its background in general and the civil disobedience movement and the Myanmar civil service in particular, and it uses Hannah Arendt’s framework to place them within the theory debate.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil service
• disobedience
• Hannah Arendt
• Myanmar
• Myanmar 2021 military coup
• responsibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.