The 6th Iue Asia Pacific Research Prize Winner: Yoshihiro Nakanishi

This study focused on identifying the characteristics of the military regime in Burma and the relationships between the state and military that enabled the regime’s long duration. In the 1980s, a wave of democracy hit the world and the authoritarian rules in Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and other Southeast Asia countries collapsed and political systems were democratized. Nonetheless, from the coup d’etat of March 2, 1962 till today, Burma (Myanmar) has been ruled by a military regime of a duration rarely seen in the world. What sort of system does this military regime have and why has it lasted so long? These questions are shared by many political researchers of Southeast Asia and have yet to be properly investigated, given the difficulty of field work. This study looked primarily at the following two points of the political system under General Ne Win (hereinafter referred to as "Ne Win’s rule") that lasted for 26 years from 1962 to 1988 (the military regime has lasted over 40 years), using information obtained during extensive field work in Burma and interviews. One is how did Ne Win retain power from when he stole it in 1962 until 1988. The other is how has the state changed under Ne Win’s rule. Least of all, how did the relations between civil and military transform? To begin with, Chapter 1 expatiates the background to these questions and explains the angle of this research. Chapter 2 puts in order the civil state of Burma and its historical background of violent mechanisms. Chapters 3～6 make corroborated observations of the main elements that composed the state during Ne Win’s rule, the national ideology, the Burma Socialist Program Party, administrative mechanisms and the military in that order.

Chapter 3 looks at the establishment of Ne Win’s rule from an ideological perspective. The "principle of reciprocating action between people and the environment" in the national ideology of Ne Win’s rule was drafted by a civilian employee of communist party roots. From an analysis of his personal history and thought processes, the document contains nothing more than anti-communistic propaganda of the military, but given the rise of hardliners in the military and the coup d’etat, it is obvious that this served as the national ideology of Ne Win’s rule. Chapter 4 traces the formation and development of Ne Win’s rule as the building of a party-state and the associated disappointments. It was one party rule by the Burma Socialist Program Party (hereinafter referred to as the "Program Party") that was seated in power after abolishing the parliamentary democracy that had existed since Burma’s independence. Originally, this same party was a puppet organization that hid military rule, but this chapter describes the important political functions for supporting Ne Win’s dictatorship that were placed in the Program Party and the process Ne Win used to build a party-state, and points out the disappointments of that in 1977. Chapter 5 analyzes mainly the administrative restructuring. An important characteristic of Burma’s military regime is that, despite the delayed development of a civilian administrative mechanism, it has been stable for a long period of time. With that regard, a detailed study was done of the content and conclusions of the administrative restructuring in and after 1962, and all transfers of military commanders from 1972 to 1987. As a result, it was found that, on the opportunities of the administrative restructuring of 1972 and the enactment of a constitution in 1974, the network of military officers deeply infiltrated administrative mechanisms on the basis of their transferred titles and the civilian bureaucrats from the colonial times lost their influence. Chapter 6 discusses the organizational structure and personnel of the military that mechanically supported Ne Win’s rule. It illustrates Ne Win’s control over military commanders and those limitations while paying close attention to the military as both a support base and threat to Ne Win’s dictatorship. It investigates Ne Win’s military system from the late 1970s through the 1980s or, in other words, how party militarization and personnel systematization and segmentation advanced, and identifies how commanders were controlled by Ne Win and, at the same time, his actions enveloped future instability factors in the alternation of generations. Chapter 7 sketches the demise of Ne Win’s rule and the process that led to a new military regime, and, by looking at that, provides an answer to the first question posed in this study, which is as follows. Ne Win retained power by delegating very many of the positions in other state organizations and the Program Party to a relatively small number of military commanders. Given the personnel shortage and the position of the military at the time, which was devoted to the suppression of anti-governmental influences in the country, it was militarily an irrational act. Nevertheless, it made possible Ne Win’s ideas that originated in the Burma nationalism of the 1930s that aimed at creating a socialist state. Parliamentary democracy was denied and the Program Party built a single party system. The bureaucracy was targeted for "destruction" as large scale administrative restructuring was implemented. However, the objective was not attained and restructuring came to a standstill because all Ne Win did was to reject both of the existing systems. By linking this process with the systematization of career patterns of military commanders, the state and party were turned into subordinate mechanisms of the military command. Resultantly, the government’s ability to make and implement policy diminished, yet the military personnel system did not get tied up. Any discontent of military commanders was kept from building as they were given strong incentives to maintain the system. This stabilized the Ne Win’s position as the military was his power base.