Stateness problems or regime unification? Explaining obstacles to democratization in Burma/Myanmar

The fact that Myanmar is not democratic is too often taken as a given in international policy discourse without analysis as to why it has not democratized or what conditions might allow for democratization. Plausible theories to explain Burma's authoritarian politics include poor levels of economic development, colonial history, regional geopolitical factors, problems of state formation and the unification of the military. Determining which theories have the most explanatory power is important because different understandings of Burma's authoritarianism steer one toward some remedies and away from others. In this paper, I argue that problems of state formation – ‘stateness’ in one strand of the democratization literature – and ‘regime unification’ theories stand the best chance of explaining the lack of democracy in Myanmar. I examine the logic and evidence for each theory and conclude that while both explain some of the status quo, ‘stateness’ had more explanatory power before 1988 but in post-1988 Myanmar, ‘regime unification’ explains more.