From Democratisation to Genocide: Explaining Myanmar’s Atrocities Against Rohingya Muslims, 2012-2018

From 2010, the historically isolated state of Myanmar began a transition to democracy, a transition which would bring the first elections in nearly two decades. The regime diluted political power between the military and new civilian institutions, allowing for significant democratisation, market liberalisation and de-censoring of communications and media in the years which followed. Simultaneously, the military implemented the most intense period of atrocities in the northwestern periphery of Rakhine State, against the Rohingya Muslim minority. To date, no research has sufficiently explained why the opening up of the state of Myanmar to the international community coincided with atrocities, the severity of which may well amount to genocide. Scholarship generally attributes Myanmar’s crimes to ‘ethnic-cleavages’, a narrative which has been debunked in scholarship on other atrocity cases; or over-zealous counter-insurgency, despite no significant Rohingya insurgent group being in...Show moreFrom 2010, the historically isolated state of Myanmar began a transition to democracy, a transition which would bring the first elections in nearly two decades. The regime diluted political power between the military and new civilian institutions, allowing for significant democratisation, market liberalisation and de-censoring of communications and media in the years which followed. Simultaneously, the military implemented the most intense period of atrocities in the northwestern periphery of Rakhine State, against the Rohingya Muslim minority. To date, no research has sufficiently explained why the opening up of the state of Myanmar to the international community coincided with atrocities, the severity of which may well amount to genocide. Scholarship generally attributes Myanmar’s crimes to ‘ethnic-cleavages’, a narrative which has been debunked in scholarship on other atrocity cases; or over-zealous counter-insurgency, despite no significant Rohingya insurgent group being in existence at the time these atrocities began. Rather than atrocities being coincidental to the democratisation process, this paper argues transition in fact sparked atrocities in Myanmar’s northwestern periphery, by destabilising an internal balance of power between elite rival factions. Based upon extant research into political violence, it poses a novel explanation for the timing of Myanmar’s atrocities against Rohingya Muslims. It argues that the resignation of elites in the military junta in order to compete in the 2010 elections resulted in heightened elite rivalry between the generals which took their place. Changes to the strategic environment of Myanmar’s new military leadership led to a calculation by which atrocities in Rakhine State were perceived as useful for new Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing. Having faced insecurity upon taking office in 2011, Senior General Hlaing had insurmountable control by 2018, suggesting atrocities in the northwest periphery had proven successful from the perspective of the new leadership. A new mechanism for the regression of democratisation to mass atrocities is posed, combining research into political violence with the chronology and context of Myanmar’s transition.Show less

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From Democratisation to Genocide: Explaining Myanmar’s Atrocities Against Rohingya Muslims, 2012-2018