Myanmar is in a top-down transition. Despite the notable changes the country has witnessed so far, obstacles have remained in place and raise doubts about the (future) state of governance in Myanmar. An assessment of the transition, up to now, cannot answer the question whether Myanmar will ultimately transform into a democracy. However, it can shed light on the question as to whether Myanmar has undergone a liberalization that might trigger further democratization.
Following the three stages model of democratic transitions, Myanmar’s present transition is predominantly described as “liberalization”. Although liberalization is not directly measurable, the exercise of civil liberties, most provocatively with staged protest assemblies, provides a reliable proxy.
The present paper will first elaborate the fundamental set of freedoms as a necessary condition for democracies. Second, it will develop criteria for meaningful liberalization and point specifically to the obstacles that might occur in the first stage of transition. Finally, the criteria will be tested against data collected from protest assemblies, between February 2011 (the inauguration of President Thein Sein) and December 2014, which have been compiled through a protest event analysis from online newspaper resources.
