Democracy is the inspiration for many social movements in today's world. But what does democracy mean to activists or political party leaders? If democracy does not have a taken-for-granted meaning, then understanding how meanings may vary – and how these differences might help to make sense of policy decision-making and political contests – is important. Before turning to the Myanmar context in the following chapters, my argument in this chapter is that an interpretivist approach, and in particular narrative analysis, can open new possibilities in elucidating the concept of democracy across varied linguistic, cultural and political contexts (Schaffer 2016).

From the work of Roe (1989) on complex public policy disputes, to Labov and Waletsky's (1997) seminal work in linguistics, and Moon's (2006) work on narratives of reconciliation, scholars have applied narrative theory in a range of academic disciplines. Some disciplines have even taken a so-called ‘narrative turn’ (Ospina & Dodge 2005). The distinguishing feature of this shift is the desire by researchers to use the framework of story to understand diverse, rather than universal, meanings of concepts or events, meanings that are temporally and spatially defined (Bacon 2012). Attention to plot and characters in the way concepts are communicated by political actors can generate new insights, both into how concepts are understood by these actors and how concepts are used politically to forward certain agendas while undermining others. It is surprising, then, that there is an absence of systematic application of narrative theory to the analysis of meanings of democracy within democracy and democratisation scholarship.

Nay Pyone Latt announced on Facebook that he had won. It was not unexpected. The well-known blogger was a candidate for Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which was the favourite to win Myanmar's 2015 national elections. Yet, just a few years before, Nay Pyone Latt had been a political prisoner. During the countrywide 2007 protests, the so-called Saffron Revolution, the then seventeen-year-old had been accused by Burmese authorities of mobilising protest through blogs and videos. He was promptly sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. But in 2012, amidst a mass pardon of political prisoners by then President Thein Sein, Nay Pyone Latt was released. By evening on the day after the 2015 election it was clear that he had won his seat for the NLD in a landslide and would soon join the Yangon Region Parliament.

By that same evening, 9 November 2015, there were crowds massing on Shwe Gone Daing Road outside the NLD headquarters in Yangon. Most in the crowd had dark indelible ink stains on their little fingers as a mark that they had voted in the election. Many wore red T-shirts with a picture of Aung San Suu Kyi or red NLD headbands – with the distinctive white star and yellow peacock – while some waved NLD balloons or flags. News was emerging of a decisive victory in which the NLD ultimately won 255 of the 330 possible seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw, or lower house of parliament. The victory was seen by many local reporters and commentators as ushering in a new post-authoritarian era of government for the country.

The NLD victory was celebrated not only domestically but also internationally. Amongst media commentators and diplomats in Europe and North America, the 2015 elections were considered to be a pivotal moment in Myanmar's long struggle for democracy.

In September 2019, Aung San Suu Kyi gave a speech for International Democracy Day in the nation's capital, Naypyidaw. In the previous year she had been stripped of multiple international awards for supporting human rights and democracy – as criticism of her and the NLD reached a crescendo following the crisis in Rakhine State. In the speech, Aung San Suu Kyi (2019) defines democracy as ‘people power’. Yet she stresses that this people power can be used both positively and negatively – it can be used for parahita (‘public interest’) or atta hita (‘self-interest’). ‘Some people think that democracy is just for self-gain’, Aung San Suu Kyi (ibid.) said, ‘basically, human beings are selfish. We can't ignore this fact, if we want a successful system. I would say democracy is a culture, rather than a system as it involves not only politics, but also social, economic and philosophical values.’ The key to these values of democracy, as opposed to a ‘system’, was ‘goodwill’. Aung San Suu Kyi (ibid.) concluded by saying that Myanmar must ‘realize democratic culture through true goodwill towards the country and mankind for the flourishing of democracy’.

In President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union address he declared that ‘a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope’ (Obama 2012). This ‘new beginning’ was embodied in reforms by the Thein Sein government, such as the establishment of a new parliament, a gradual freeing of press censorship and the release of many long-term political prisoners – most notably Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Four months after Obama's State of the Union address, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (2012) glowingly said that, ‘[a]fter decades of internal repression, we see dramatic and hopeful changes taking place in Burma. Here is a democratic transition unfolding in a peaceful, collaborative fashion – acclaimed by the domestic electorate and the international community.’ Western embassies in Myanmar likewise had buoyant expectations about Myanmar's progress. Over the following year, many OECD governments responded by easing longstanding sanctions against the Myanmar government and scaling up the budgets and presence of donor agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID).

In 1937, Chief Secretary to the colonial Government of Burma Frank Burton Leach published his work, The Future of Burma. According to Leach, there was a global current of politics which had ‘for the last century been carrying mankind towards the Ocean of Democracy’ (Leach 1937: 138). Leach considered the West to be the ‘centre of the stream’, while the East ‘has for the most part been left in backwaters along the banks’ (ibid.: 138). He concluded, however, that ‘the East has been gradually sucked into the main stream’ (ibid.). Late colonial Burma, with the support of the British, was moving toward the ‘Ocean of Democracy’.

Yet these were tumultuous times. There were waves of strikes and protests throughout Burma in 1938 and significant mobilisation of opposition to British rule. The Thakin movement was instrumental in this social mobilisation and in the years before the Second World War, ‘democratic freedom’ became a prominent goal for these independence activists (Aung San 1993a [1945]: 81). Yet, between colonial officials such as Leach and the Burmese Thakin, ‘democracy’ took deeply contrasting meanings. There was intense contest between British and Burmese elites in the late colonial period, not just over a transition to self-rule but over the meaning of democracy itself, and political rivals used contrasting narratives as tools to outflank their opponents.

It is two weeks since Myanmar's military coup. Thousands of protesters are on the streets around the country, police in bulletproof vests and riot shields are setting up perimeter lines on major roads and using water cannons to disperse crowds, and a widespread civil disobedience movement is gaining momentum with employees in many sectors refusing to work. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and many National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders have been detained, along with a number of activists. This military seizure of power is an incredibly distressing turn for those who have participated in the research for this book and who have devoted much of their lives to service of their country. It is with admiration for their bravery and commitment that I write this foreword.

One striking thing about the days following the coup – and a point which is at the heart of this book – is the degree to which the language of democracy is infused in communication, from military elites, foreign diplomats and protesters alike. As General Min Aung Hlaing attempted to justify the seizure of power, he did so through the language of democracy – by questioning the legitimacy of the November 2020 election and promising to hold fresh ‘free and fair’ elections which would bring about a ‘discipline flourishing democracy’. On the streets in Yangon, Naypyidaw and Bago protesters held signs saying, ‘Fight for democracy’ and ‘We want democracy’. North American and European leaders meanwhile condemned the coup and called for a restoration of democracy. Despite the vast gulf in aspirations and hopes for the country between Tatmadaw elites, NLD leaders, radical young activists, international aid workers and Western diplomats, the word democracy remained part of all their messages.

Before the coup, it was clear that the democratic visions of NLD leadership were being challenged on a number of flanks. On one flank, the last five years have underscored the divergence between the democratic visions of the NLD and those of a Western style liberal democracy – brought most obviously to light through issues of protection of Muslim minorities or freedom of the press.

This case of activists, democratic leaders and aid workers in Myanmar – and the ways in which they communicate about democracy – reveals lessons that can be applied more broadly to endeavours to understand democracy promotion around the world. In this chapter, I address both the democracypromotion literature and also practical implications for practitioners working on governance or democracy programs in international donor agencies or NGOs.

Before addressing these implications, however, I recap the significance of this study for consideration of meanings of democracy. As described in Chapter Two, I have taken a different path to that of mainstream studies of democracy. Rather than beginning with an ‘ideal type’ from which to analyse meanings that citizens or political actors give to the word ‘democracy’, I have instead drawn on Gallie's (1956) notion of ‘essentially contestable concepts’. Using ‘essential contestability’ as the conceptual foundation allows meanings of democracy, in countries like Myanmar, to be considered on their own terms rather than as pale reflections of an ideal democracy that exists elsewhere.

There are, of course, few democratisation scholars who would deny that there is normative contestation over how democracy should be practiced, for example, with the participation of women, the practice of voting, and so on. However, the case of activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar reveals contests over both the practice of democracy and also contests over the very components of the concept of democracy itself. This is a crucial distinction. The liberal, benevolence and equality narratives portray profoundly different versions of challenges, visions and strategies related to democracy in Myanmar. It is this finding that supports Gallie's (1956) arguments and challenges notions of an ‘ideal type’ of democratic values and institutions that transcends cultural or temporal context.

I began this book with reflections on the historic election victory of the NLD, which catapulted the long suffering NLD party, and Aung San Suu Kyi, into power. Much of the rest of this book has been oriented to look back from that pivotal moment in 2015 – to the transition after 2010, to the decades of authoritarian rule, and then even further back to the independence era and the late colonial period in Burma. Drawing on this history of conceptual contests over democracy, in this chapter, I now look forward to how contests over the meaning of democracy might shape areas of political decision-making and policy in Myanmar over the coming decade. How might the particular examples of narratives, and their political use, that I have described within activist networks, the NLD and aid agencies apply to the future of Myanmar's politics? What challenges might there be for activists, democratic leaders and aid agencies through future contests over the meaning of democracy?

Since the 2015 elections there have been many attempts to identify the core future challenges that Myanmar faces – related to political leadership (Blaževič 2016; Barany 2018; Roman & Holliday 2018), Muslim minorities and citizenship (Kosem & Saleem 2016; Win & Kean 2017; Ahsan 2018; Mukherjee 2019), ethnic conflict and peace (Dukalskis 2017; Ganesan 2017; South 2018; Wilson 2018) and ongoing military influence in politics and the economy (Huang 2017; Selth 2018). Most analysts implicitly or explicitly ask, as Roman and Holliday (2018) do, ‘What are the prospects for liberal democracy in Myanmar?’ Some authors are hopeful of movement toward liberal democracy (Blaževič 2016), or at least ‘cautiously optimistic’ (Steinberg 2015).

Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, British colonial resources in Southeast Asia were exhausted and the Burmese movement for independence gained momentum. After negotiations in London, British Prime Minister Attlee finally conceded that the British would grant Burma independence in 1948. The AFPFL convincingly won general elections in 1947 – to determine the composition of the future government of Burma – and Aung San was thrust into national leadership. Ironically though, while resisting British colonial rule, the formal institutions adopted in the new 1947 Constitution were largely structured around the British Westminster ‘prototype’ (Maung Maung Gyi 1983: 87).

This chapter examines the period from Burma's independence until the first political and economic liberalisations under the Thein Sein government from 2011. I first focus on the AFPFL leadership after independence and the ways in which, during the parliamentary period, meanings of democracy took a moral turn, focussing on the value of unity amidst the chaos of multiple civil wars and party division. I then examine the lurch to the military leadership under General Ne Win and the reaction against the perceived immaturity of parliamentary government. Finally, I highlight the emergence of democracy movement leaders, particularly Aung San Suu Kyi, and their reaction against the military assumptions of ‘disciplined democracy’ and a guardian role for the Tatmadaw. Overall, this chapter is not an attempt to construct a unitary history of Myanmar but rather to locate and uncover struggles over the meaning of democracy during these different periods and how they shape contemporary political uses of the word ‘democracy’.

In the lead up to the 2015 elections, I sat in the upstairs office of a Burmeselanguage journal publisher, speaking with prominent writer and activist Daw Thandar Win. Thandar Win had written a number of articles about the rapid political transitions in Myanmar. Yet, along with her critique of the role of the military in politics, she was also deeply critical of Burmese political culture, even within the democracy movement itself. She described ‘Burmese thinking’ as ‘locked up’, insisting that new leaders, even those within the NLD, would not be able to solve the inherent problem in Myanmar of relational inequality. If political leaders emphasise the values of unity and obligation, she argued, this simply reinforces an undemocratic culture. Crucially, she suggested that new formal democratic institutions would also fail to treat the core problem, which was seen to be cultural rather than procedural. The primary problem was not the personalised nature of politics, but rather the hierarchical values fostered within that personalised system. These hierarchical values were seen by Daw Thandar Win to be an unresolved obstacle to Burmese democracy.

To this point, my unpacking of meanings of democracy amongst Burmese democratic leaders, activists and international aid workers has emphasised two contrasting ways in which democracy was narrated. In this chapter, I outline an equality narrative of democracy that was drawn on within some networks of activists, and which was largely a reaction against the benevolence narrative described in the previous chapter.

In the terms of Schaffer (2016), the ‘elucidation’ of concepts requires the intellectual tasks of grounding, locating and exposing. I have devoted the previous three chapters to describing contrasting storylines of democracy drawn on by activists, democratic leaders and aid workers – the liberal, benevolence and equality narratives. These chapters have firstly focussed on the task of grounding the concept of democracy by examining how key political actors themselves understand democracy and democratisation in Myanmar. The previous three chapters have also focussed on locating these meanings of democracy – tracing out the historical and cultural embeddedness of the narratives and how they have been produced by political actors. It is clear from this grounding and locating of the meaning of democracy that democratic leaders and activists in Myanmar, and their supporters, were not all running toward the same finishing line. Tracing out different narratives, with their origins, overlaps and distinctions, can make the actions and beliefs of Burmese and international political actors more comprehensible.

Having laid these foundations in the previous chapters, this chapter turns to the task of exposing the ways that meanings of democracy are wielded politically by networks of aid workers, activists and democratic leaders in Myanmar. Rather than narratives being neutral or objective, I describe how understandings and communication about democracy are embedded within unequal relations of power.

This chapter focuses on the crucial issue of building trust both ways, and the need for many of the intermediaries to behave in a Janus-faced fashion. They have to play up their commitment to the funders and global actors in certain settings while then playing down their global connections in local settings where there is a distrust of foreign connections. As in the previous chapter, this illustrates that the use of intermediaries’ foreign capital is not solely to their benefit, as the value of their capital is affected by the existing distrust of foreign interests. The chapter concludes that trust building and relationship building can be seen as prerequisites for successful rule of law assistance and are the focus of much donor effort. However, because foreign actors cannot supply prior proof of trust, it is the known actors, such as intermediaries, who instead take on the role of trust builders.

This chapter presents a macro perspective of the field of rule of law promotion, drawing on a ‘travelling models’ framework to illustrate the authoritative features that rule of law takes on as a model for development intervention and emphasise rule of law’s mediated necessities rather than its universalities. The framework does not claim that models are coherent and static; rather, that they are fluid, but always present a contrast to domestic worldviews and understandings, and thus are an intervention of some sort. Even when adapted and adjusted by skilled development workers, models need mediation and translation because they will never be fully promoted from the bottom up. The result of bringing in models in illiberal settings that are accompanied by decades of miscomprehensions and that have preconceived meanings in the specific locale is an adapted version of the substantive rule of law ideal that development assistance seeks to introduce. The chapter sets the scene for later understanding the ambiguous work and influence of rule of law intermediaries as they broker different worldviews and understandings between development counterparts in an authoritarian setting.