Vijay Kumar Maidergi

Publication

The Golden Land Ablaze: Coups, Insurgents and the State in Myanmar

Since the coup in 2021, Myanmar (formerly Burma) has been embroiled in civil strife. The political gains, if at all it was, made in the last decade due to a return to democracy after nearly five decades (1962–2010) of military rule were wasted. The military Junta, the reigning sovereign authority, refuses to relinquish power, for it believes it is the only entity with the right and means to unite the country, which otherwise has been torn across by ethnic divisions. However, armed ethnic groups, general civil society, and the international community tend to point out that the root cause of the problem remains the military junta.

Authoritarian Stability and the Challenge of Federal Aspirations in Myanmar’s Post-Independence Conflict

The question of federalism is the structural core of the conflict between Ethnic Armed Organisations and Tatmadaw. This article uses Hobbes’ concept of the state of nature to examine why internal strife persists despite decades of State building and democratisation efforts. The Hobbesian framework is specifically used to understand the paradox: the Tatmadaw invokes Hobbesian justification for centralised authority for prevention of chaos, yet simultaneously produces the conditions of ungoverned violence it claims to prevent. This contradiction, multiplied by the military’s categorical rejection of federalism, explains both the durability of armed resistance and the failure of successive peace processes.