ABSTRACT

Like Afghanistan, Burma/Myanmar has never had a strong, high-capacity state. The bureaucracy of independent Burma had colonial origins in the Indian Civil Service (ICS). In many ways the situation in democratic Burma in the 1950s resembled that of the weak states described by Migdal: landlords, political bosses and other local elites resisted state authority and perpetuated private networks of power. By 1962 the military was the best-organized central government institution in Burma. The military government that took command in 1962 regarded the civil service it inherited from the parliamentary period as politically unreliable and corrupt. As the 8–8–88 crisis worsened, a group of military officers organized the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and took over the functions of the defunct Ne Win government. Most accounts of human rights in Burma/Myanmar under military rule took one person as emblematic of the country: Aung San Suu Kyi, the chair of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).