Rethinking the Emergence and the Practice of Three Praetorian States in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study between Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand

Muhammad Indrawan Jatmika

doi:10.22146/globalsouth.50258

Rethinking the Emergence and the Practice of Three Praetorian States in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study between Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand

https://doi.org/10.22146/globalsouth.50258

Muhammad Indrawan Jatmika^(1*)

(1) Institute of International Studies
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

Military forces have had many important roles in political life in Southeast Asia where the military has a full power or major role and influence in the domestic politics. These forms of military intervention in domestic politics are called praetorianism, which is characterized by the military being more inclined to take care of domestic political affairs rather than carrying out its professional duties as guardians of sovereignty from external threats. We can find this practice from seeing the New Order regime in Indonesia to the Military Junta of Myanmar and Thailand. This paper aims to analyze what factors are the background of the widespread practice of praetorianism and how the practice can last for a certain period of time, even still to this day in Southeast Asia. The main argument is the weak political institutions and the low political culture of developing country are the main causes of various intervention efforts made by the armed forces in the domestic political realm of a country.

Keywords

Praetorianism, military, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand

Full Text:

PDF

References

Books

Aspinall, E., & Mietzner, M. (2008). From Silkworms to Bungled Bailout: International Influences on the 1998 Regime Change in Indonesia: CDDRL.

Bunbongkarn, S. (2004). The Military and Democracy in Asia and the Pacific (R. J. May & V. Selochan Eds.): ANU press.

Crouch, H. (2007). The army and politics in Indonesia: Equinox Publishing.

Elson, R. E. (2001). Suharto: a Political Biography: Cambridge University Press.

Handley, P. M. (2006). The king never smiles: a biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej: Yale University Press.

Houtman, G. (1999). Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy: Ilcaa.

Kwok, J.-C. (2010). Explaining civil-military relations in Southeast Asia. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Manarungsan, S. (2000). The rice economy of Thailand in the 1930s depression. Weathering the Storm: The Economies of Southeast Asia in the 1930s Depression. Leiden: KITLV Press and Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Myint-U, T. (2007). The river of lost footsteps: histories of Burma: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Myoe, M. A. (2009). Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar armed forces since 1948 (Vol. 352): Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Rapoport, D. C. (1960). Praetorianism: government without consensus: University of California, Berkeley.

Ricklefs, M. C. (1981). A History of Modern Indonesia: c. 1300 to the Present: Macmillan Basingstoke.

Seekins, D. M. (2017). Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar). Rowman & Littlefield.

Steinberg, D. I. (2001). Burma: the state of Myanmar: Georgetown University Press.

Stowe, J. A. (1991). Siam becomes Thailand: A story of intrigue: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers.

Suryadinata, L., & Emmerson, D. K. (1989). Military Ascendancy and Political Culture: A Study of Indonesia Golkar. Ohio: University Center for International Studies.

Win, S. (1959). The split story: an account of recent political upheaval in Burma: with emphasis on AFPFL: The Guardian.

Report

Amnesty International. (2017). Thailand. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/58de19e04.pdf

Karabelias, G. (1998). Civil- Military Relations: A Comparative Analysis of the Role of the Military in the Political Transformation of Post- War Turkey and Greece: 1980-1995. Retrieved from https://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/96-98/karabeli.pdf

Martin, M. F. (2016). Burma’s 2015 Parliamentary Elections: Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service, 44436.

Journal Article

Bunbongkarn, S. (1988). The Thai military's effort to institutionalise its political role. The Pacific Review, 1(4), 400-411.

Bünte, M., & Dosch, J. (2015). Myanmar: Political reforms and the recalibration of external relations. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 34(2), 3-19.

Chambers, P., & Waitoolkiat, N. (2016). The resilience of monarchised military in Thailand. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 46(3), 425-444.

Devi, K. S. (2014). Myanmar under the military rule 1962-1988. International Research Journal of Social Sciences, 3(10), 46-50.

Edeh, H. C., & Ugwueze, M. I. (2014). Military and Politics: Understanding the Theoretical Underpinnings of Military Incursion in Third World Politics. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(20), 2047.

Huntington, S. P. (1965). Political development and political decay. World politics, 17(3), 386-430.

Hlaing, K. Y. (2007). Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar: a review of the lady's biographies. Contemporary Southeast Asia, 359-376.

Kongkirati, P. (2018). Haunted Past, Uncertain Future: The Fragile Transition to Military-Guided Semi-Authoritarianism in Thailand. Southeast Asian Affairs, 363-376.

Maung, M. (1964). Socialism and economic development of Burma. Asian Survey, 1182-1190.

Mietzner, M. (2012). Ideology, money and dynastic leadership: the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, 1998–2012. South East Asia Research, 20(4), 511-531.

Noperi, N. (2018). Strategi Politik Masyumi di Yogyakarta 1952-1955 dalam menghadapi Pemilu 1955. Ilmu Sejarah-S1, 3(6).

Ockey, J. (2007). Thailand's' Professional Soldiers' and Coup-making: The Coup of 2006. Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 95-127.

Perlmutter, A. (1969). The praetorian state and the praetorian army: Toward a taxonomy of civil-military relations in developing polities. Comparative Politics, 1(3), 382-404.

Shimy, Y.M (2008). A Model of Praetorian States (Middle East Working Paper 2016-01), Retrieved from Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy, School, website: https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/2016-01-MEI_RFWP_ElShimy_0.pdf

Electronic sources

Bemma, A. (2019). Thailand's Parliament Meets, but Military Retains Upper Hand. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/thailands-parliament-meets-military-retains-upper-hand-190523081322369.html

Thepgumpanat, P., & Tanakasempipat, P. (2017). Three years after coup, junta is deeply embedded in Thai life. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-military/three-years-after-coup-junta-is-deeply-embedded-in-thai-life-idUSKCN18G0ZJ

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/globalsouth.50258