From unarmed to armed resistance: the anti-coup in Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Following the 2021 military coup, a unionwide peaceful anti-coup movement emerged in Myanmar, which escalated into armed conflict. The aim of this paper is to explain how and why the initially nonviolent anti-coup movement radicalised. This study applies the qualitative method process-tracing. I argue that the resistance's radicalisation can be explained by three interacting mechanisms. First, the framing of high-intensity repression as a trigger event provides actors with a motivational basis for armed resistance. Second, the initially low cohesion and lack of leadership in the movement enabled mobilisation for armed resistance in self-organising networks. Third, the contentious capacity of longstanding non-state armed actors provides resisters with possibilities to implement an armed repertoire.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-coup
• civil resistance
• armed resistance
• Myanmar

Acknowledgements

My special thanks go to Aurel Croissant, Christoph Trinn, Carmen Wintergerst as well as the editorial team and anonymous reviewers for support and comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. I extend my sincere appreciation to the individuals who generously participated in the interviews for this study. Their valuable insights and willingness to share their experiences and ideas have been vital in shaping the findings of this research. A previous version of this manuscript was presented at the Young Scholars Group Conference 2023 of the German Association for Asian Studies in Halle an der Saale, Germany, where I gained a lot of insight from discussions with Florian Pölking and other participants.

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics declaration

Interviews were conducted as part of this project. Interviewees gave informed written consent to take part in the research. The Institutional Review Board of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at Heidelberg University approved this project (reference number FESS-HD-2022-003).

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Julia Wießmann

Julia Wießmann is PhD candidate and lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University. Her research interests are social movements, political violence, and autocratisation.