Stopping the Slide: The Tenuous Forces Uploading Democracy

Introduction

In the early hours of February 1st, 2021, as the nation slept, Myanmar’s military staged a coup against the country’s fragile democratic government. The takeover was announced via broadcast on an army-run television station, followed closely by a military declaration of a one-year state of emergency.[i] Following a decade of relatively steady democratization, Myanmar rapidly plunged into a tense and deadly turmoil. The details of the military’s goals remain ambiguous, but one facet of their agenda is clear: destroy any hope of an enduring democracy. This democratic hope had been carefully nurtured for years by former dissident leader and advocate, Aung San Suu Kyi, and sustained by her millions of supporters across the nation.[ii] Now, as Suu Kyi’s proponents take to the streets, bravely facing violent clashes and military crackdowns, the question stands of what these protests signal for the future of the country and its potential to democratize.

In situations like Myanmar, international media coverage tends to focus on protest movements themselves, drawing the public eye to violent clashes between opposing sides. However, public interest often wanes before the extended effects of these events are clear. Although the media rarely examines the long-term results of protests, the true success of a protest movement hinges not on the protest itself but rather on what happens afterward.[iii] As the world looks to Myanmar and other pro-democracy movements across the globe, past examples of civil disobedience indicate factors that tend to produce lasting success: a shared identity among dissidents and their successful organization in government.

Democratic (De)-Consolidation

Myanmar is not alone. Indeed, much of the twenty-first century has been marked by democratic backsliding, a process defined by the decline of democracy and a shift towards autocratic leadership.[iv] From Asia to Europe to Africa and from tenuous democracies like Myanmar to long-established ones like the United States, this backsliding has emerged as a far-reaching phenomenon. The steady downturn of democracy has come as a surprise to political scientists and third-party observers given that the final decades of the twentieth century were characterized by the opposite: a global wave of democratization, wherein more than 60 countries shifted from authoritarian rule to some form of democracy. This period was accordingly called democratic consolidation, and there was a widespread belief among experts that once a country democratized, it was likely to stay that way.[v] Nevertheless, the recent, unexpected rise in autocratization has proven that this is not the case.

This democratic backsliding has not come without a fight. Indeed, the last several years have been marked by civil disobedience against autocracy and pro-democracy movements in countries like Russia, Turkey, Brazil, and Poland. Between the spring of 2020 and the spring of 2021, 68 countries experienced mass protest movements, many of them violent; it has been a tumultuous time of unrest compounded by a global pandemic and widespread economic and social strain.[vi] As the world looks towards its future, understanding the relationship between a protest's short-term outcome to its enduring success is crucial to evaluating whether the effects of current pro-democracy movements may endure. How dissidents react when violence is over and carry their movement beyond the protests will determine whether or not they are able to succeed in the long term. In exploring this issue, a natural comparative case arises in the Arab Spring, one of the more recent cross-national pro-democracy movements that uprooted much of the Arab world. In 2010, protests broke out in Egypt and Tunisia just months apart, but a decade later, their outcomes could not be more different: the former presents a case of a movement that lacked structure and whose victory was surprising yet short-lived; the latter, a protest that has managed to reform the nation’s political structures. What did Tunisian revolutionaries accomplish that Egyptian ones did not, and what can dissidents in other nations, like Myanmar, learn from these differences?

Egypt

In 2011, unrest shook Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Mounting discontent as a result of political repression, corruption, and police brutality, among other issues, exploded in mass protests, deposing the 30-year, autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.[vii] After Mubarak stepped down, Egypt was full of celebration, excitement, and hope for the future.[viii] In 2011, immediately following the Tahrir Square movement, politics, the arts, innovation, and entrepreneurship flourished as the country opened up to democratic ideals. The widespread anticipation for an improved socio-political climate following Mubarak’s removal persisted. Yet, in June 2013, the military retook power; just as quickly as the country had started to liberalize, the period of growing democracy was over, and Egypt returned to its status as a military state.

The difficulty in retaining a democratic structure is not unusual for a country that has experienced rapid political transition, and it is often the reason why newly democratized countries quickly revert into non-democratic regimes.[ix] Although the reasons for Egypt’s backslide into autocracy are multifaceted, the challenge of creating unity and structure among activists during the post-protest years ultimately proved detrimental to the movement’s longstanding success. Faced with a country full of potential but lacking in foundational political structure, activists were left with almost too much to do. Mubarak left a power vacuum, and the need for political, social, and economic change exacerbated the tense aftermath of the revolution. It was a period of excitement but also volatility and confusion, and the ongoing clashes between protestors and their opposition prevented the creation of a unified pro-democracy coalition.[x]

In the immediate aftermath of Mubarak’s downfall, opposition leaders failed to develop united political strategies that could steer the transition in a consistent direction. Though more than 190 parties registered for the 2011 elections, the vast majority of civic activists did not shift into the political realm. As a result, the protest movement lost popular support, and the motivation that had fueled the initial protests waned. Tensions grew between politicians and activists, and the protest movement lost support among the general population.[xi] A lack of unification between opposition movements allowed the military to once again take charge.

The monumental nature of the Egyptian revolution and the courage displayed by protestors cannot be underestimated. However, the lack of political unity between activists and politicians following the initial movement caused an erosion in democratic support, leading to the country’s decline into autocracy.

Tunisia

Little more than a month before the Egyptian revolution began, protests erupted in nearby Tunisia. Fueled by similar concerns of social inequality and a lack of political freedom, the protests were spurred by the self-immolation of a young street vendor on December 17, 2010.[xii] Demonstrations and riots quickly spread across the country in a movement now termed the Jasmine Revolution. In January 2011, this culminated in the ousting of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the country’s longtime autocratic president. The Tunisian revolution was the impetus for the Arab Spring uprisings in countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, and a decade later, it is widely regarded as the only successful one of these movements.[xiii] Although it still faces political and economic challenges, Tunisia remains the sole country to make a peaceful democratic transition after the Arab Spring protests began.

As with the failure of the Egyptian revolution, the reasons for Tunisia’s relative success are multifaceted. However, a key factor that contributed to the Jasmine Revolution’s lasting legacy was the political unity between protestors both during and after the revolution. The movement was a sustained mass protest that cut across classes and geographical barriers, giving it significant leverage and force via collective action. This mobilization came as a result of widespread opposition and distrust of Ben Ali–particularly by secular opposition leaders and the regime’s narrow base of supporters—which provided the necessary elements to fuel the protests.[xiv]

The movement’s lasting impact was further entrenched in the months following the initial revolution, as activists and politicians were able to work together in spite of their differences. The Ennahda Movement, which defined itself as a Muslim democratic party, was the plurality winner of the 2011 elections and established a governing constituent Assembly. Although secularist and Islamist members of the assembly held starkly different views on issues from women’s rights to the governing system, these divides did not entirely halt the assembly’s work. Both sides made concessions on certain issues and built bridges without retreating or exiting the political sphere, which is often characteristic of activists in comparable circumstances. This has been the key to the Tunisian movement’s enduring success: the capacity for compromise and activists’ determination to enter government and work through differences with their counterparts. Even when they did not achieve their goals directly, their ability to retain a space in government was crucial to the prevailing nature of the movement.

Conclusion

As the world faces a turbulent period rife with social and political discord, the global forces upholding democracy are under strain. Myanmar is far from the only country faced with the question of what will follow; this period presents a risk to long-standing democracies as well as newly democratized nations. Thus, understanding what it is that makes a protest movement successful is more important than ever, and past comparisons provide a window into the key elements of enduring resistance. By examining parallels and differences between movements, it is clear that unification between political leaders and opposition activists is key. Indeed, some of the most successful post-protest pathways come when activists shift into political leadership, an aspect that was lacking in the Egyptian revolution. In years to come, as civil disobedience continues to mold and shift societies across the world, understanding the individual elements of protest can generate an understanding of which movements will endure and which may not.

Illustration by Oscar Martinez

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