Concordance and the risk of military intervention in post-military states : A comparative case study of Indonesia and Myanmar

Abstract: The 2021 military coup in Myanmar is part of a much bigger trend towards democratic regression in Southeast Asia where military influence has played an important role. Previous research on the SEA region suggests that the citizenry has been overlooked in understanding how civil-military relations have been shaped. Rebecca L. Schiff’s concordance theory presumes that when concordance, i.e., agreement, between the military, political leadership, and the citizenry exists on the four indicators (1) social composition of officer corps, (2) political decision-making procedures, (3) recruitment method and (4) military style, military intervention in domestic politics is less likely to occur. The aim of this thesis is to conduct a comparative case study of Myanmar and Indonesia to understand how the three actors have shaped their respective civil-military relations. By applying concordance theory, a comparison is made to assess the theory’s predictive and explanatory power of the two cases. Results suggest that the two cases' political developments are in line with the theory. Indonesia demonstrates a higher degree of concordance among all indicators and has not experienced a military intervention in the studied time period. Comparatively, Myanmar demonstrates a low degree ofconcordance among all indicators and subsequently, military intervention in domestic politics is common. However, a lack of data on some indicators questions the strength of these claims. Collecting primary material for future research is suggested to analyse the concordance of all four indicators in depth and ensure an accurate representation of the citizenry for both cases.