 Great. I want to thank you, Anna and Henry, for joining us today for our next installation of the seminar series, New Voices in Global Security. Today we have Anna, who's going to be presenting a co-authored paper called the struggle over anti-coup norm, autocratic norm resistance, and the 2021 coup in Myanmar. So Anna is, Anna Plunkett is a lecturer in international relations at the Department of War Studies in King's College London here. She has just completed her PhD in the Department of War Studies, where she was awarded an ESRC studentship for her project opportunities and obstructions the role of local elites in creating subnational variation within the nationally led top-down regime transitions. Oh my goodness, Anna, that is such a PhD title. I love it. She holds an MA in post-war recovery studies and a BA in politics and economics from the University of York. And alongside her academic work, Anna has worked as a strategic consultant and human rights researcher with several post-conflict environments, building capacity and sustainability within small organizations. Her research focuses on the role of local elites as mediators and obstacles within national led regime transitions. She's interested in how the presence of such alternative authority structures, sorry, authority structures impact community experiences in national political processes. Her work has primarily focused on the ongoing regime transition processes and localized conflict within Myanmar. She is presently working to develop a comparative study of local elites within post-conflict regime transitions. So Anna is joined today by Dr. Henry Merton, who will act as her discussant. Henry is one of the leading experts on men and masculinities in the context of conflict and peace building. And he's currently, I believe still currently a co-investigator in the masculinities and sexualities research stream for gender justice and security hub at the London School of Economics, Women, Peace and Security Center. He has worked extensively on gender conflicts, transitional justice and peace building, including the country of Myanmar for a number of NGOs and international organizations. His research is prolific and he's developed key state of the art publications on the subject and can be found in numerous international journals and edited volumes. So I want to thank you both again for being able to be here today, a part of our new voices series. So the audience themselves, I want to also welcome you and thank you very much for attending and listening intently in an overcast afternoon in London or hopefully sunny wherever some of you might be in the world today. So the, the format is going to work that Anna will now present for about 20 minutes, sharing slides, and then we'll hand the floor over to Henry for discussant comments and commentary. Before we open it up to you the audience for further questions or comments you can either ask live by raising your zoom hand or you can type in the question answer box and I can ask or pose those questions to Anna. I'm going to hand over the virtual floor to you. Thank you very much. I'm just going to share these slides. Thanks very much for having me. So this is really a first reflection on the Q so as I understand I recently passed my PhD, looking at where was the local dynamics of conflict and democracy within Myanmar. And as I was submitting so I was meant to spend in February the Q happened at the same time. And this really changed the way I kind of understood the country and I very much looked at this transition period. So from 2008 up until 2020 or 2021 as we now see it as to how into this relationship between democracy and conflict. So, this is kind of a first run and a currently ongoing paper between myself and Asian Tanzi on how the international community has responded to the Q and how really it's facilitating the consolidation of the Q so it's very much a work in progress and I've been very appreciative of any comments anyone has. And so this was a big change and it's always quite an expected one if we look at the transitions within Myanmar. So really what we're looking at here is, is the question of the, you know, what, what is the question of how is the international community responded, and how is the international environment affected the developments that we've seen over the last almost year now, since the Q, and we're really has enabled the consolidation of this authoritarian environment in the post-Q period and allowed the levels of repression and the levels of consolidation we're seeing within the Myanmar post-Q state. So really what we're looking at is what's happening in Myanmar and to what extent can we hold the international community responsible for the outcomes that we're beginning to see appearing as we get further and further away from the Q that happened in February itself. And we argue that in the wake of the Myanmar Q there's a supportive environment has been created for this consolidation of authoritarianism within Myanmar. And this is achieved through a very limited and inconsistent application of the anti-Q norm by Western states and by the international community, but it's been further enabled by the sponsorship and protection by norm resistors. In this case authoritarian regimes focusing here very much on China and Russia, due to their priority in the UN Security Council and as norm resistors more broadly. But also, and I think one of the more surprising findings especially over the last few weeks has been the role that ASEAN has played in developing the anti-Q norm within Asia, which was in some ways unexpected if we look historically at what ASEAN has been engaged with. This strategy compares the strategies engagement that democratic non-defenders and non-resistors have engaged with, focusing on these kind of core countries and looking at the role of regional organisations in that and also assessing what the implications for Myanmar going forward and we look beyond the post-Q period. So what happened on the 1st of February? If you're unaware on the 1st of February the new Myanmar government was meant to take control of the country and there was an election in November and this government should have started sitting on the 1st of February and instead of waking up to that reality. What Myanmar woke up to instead was the reality of another coup, the military taking control of Napidor which is the parliamentary capital in the centre of the country. They arrested the main leaders of the NLD including Aung San Suu Kyi, the very well-known pro-democracy figure in Myanmar and the previous leader of the government. And you saw tanks and the military come back into the streets both in Napidor and in Yangon and in Mandalay and other main cities across the country. So a very clear coup. And one of the really interesting questions when we look at the coup in Myanmar is the legality aspect. So the definition that I have here, you know, the illegal and overt attempts of military within the state apparatus to unseat the executive. Is that this is clearly a military coup and yet the illegality of it isn't a question given that actually in the Myanmar constitution there is an allowance for the military takeover government and this is what the military used when they did take that seat in government. What they were doing was a legal manoeuvre to resolve issues of both the fraud they had highlighted in the election and that they would return to democracy soon. And this is very much in keeping with other coup patterns we see that actually many militaries that come into coup to take over government do so in defence of democracy. And that's not necessarily mean we're going to see a democratic pattern afterwards and actually often what we see instead is a turn to hybridity. So competitive authoritarianism and other forms of regime that really build on that authoritarian base that military brings into power. And though there was a state of international outcry and there definitely was after the coup and especially after oppressive measures started in the post coup period. And it has been able to consolidate quite strongly and really begin to build its leadership and legitimacy within the state, despite ongoing protests. And they've established the state administration council with mint on claim, the military leader at the head of that parliament. And so they have really claimed to legally take over the state and restore and claims that they will eventually restore Myanmar's democracy. And that's forward to 276 days, which is how long it's been since the coup. Yeah, what are we seeing now when we're not seeing a return to democracy. Those promised elections have gone further and further away as they've been increasingly delayed by the military parliament. And I think she and other NLD leaders find themselves under house arrest remaining detained and going through what I consider to be a level of show court or kangaroo courts within the state to try and press. The, the freedoms that were established during the previous transition period. So here we can look at things like the numbers killed using quite a repressive response. But also most journalists publications have been shut down freedom of speech has been greatly limited between media blackouts the establishment of you know, no real apart from the state media being engaged with. So it's very difficult to see where we're seeing any kind of move towards or restores restoration of democracy within Myanmar anytime soon. So the question is how we ended up here. How we ended up in a situation where I state that was democratizing has so quickly slid back into authoritarianism, and to what extent has the international communities response facilitated this environment, and react to those calls, you know, we are seeing increase of course from NGOs both domestic and internationally to bring an end to the crisis in Myanmar and yet let very little movement on the international stage. So how do we understand that. One of the ways we can look at this is freely anti cube norm. And this really is, you know, since the end of the Cold War we've seen this rise in the belief, you know the end of history, that democracy promotion is is the way forward. And the democracy is the only game in town for how states and regime should work. So we see universal human rights and civil and political rights, all the way through to the really the establishment of this in charter, both in the EU, but in the organization of American states, the US and other state policies on it, the African Union. So we see, not only was it a norm, but we've seen it actually brought into law to be actually physically engaged with. And when we look at the response over the coup period as highlighted here. The number of coups has dramatically reduced in in since the Cold War. Now part of this is to do with the end of the third wave and the consolidation of democracy, but in part it's to do with this idea that as the international committee has built into their chances the promotion of democracy. States have increasingly been penalized for taking part in things like coups. And so, for things like the African Union we see some suspension from membership. And so there has been a deterrence for queuing governments to engage in incub behavior. But this is only part of the story. If we look at why the international, if we look at national answers when the reason we can look at how the anti-cunomers failing or struggling to really take precedent. It can be highlighted in these two cases, the case of Haiti and the case of Egypt. In Haiti, the coup was in 1991, the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council and the regional organization, the organization of American states all reacted very quickly in the first few years of the coup. And eventually that capitulated. However, in Egypt, when we look at a similar response, whilst the African Union did respond and suspend the membership, there was UN outcry, but there was no very limited sanctions. And then the Gulf Cooperation Council actually stepped in, supported this new government and provided them the funds and capacity to maintain their power. So rather than capitulating like we've seen Haiti, we saw a consolidation of authoritarianism within this case. So we see how international responses can really dramatically impact the likelihood of consolidation to authoritarianism within post-coup countries. So one of the ways we can look at this as Tansi highlights is this contest or this competition between states that are putting on democratic pressure and states that are providing autocratic sponsorship. And so when we look at this, we can see there's competition here of how much, how important are these states and how much pressure or sponsorship are they willing and able to provide. So when we look at Haiti, we can see it was a constraining environment that the democratic pressure was very high and the autocratic sponsorship was very low. And so the government capitulated. In Egypt, we can see that was there was democratic pressure, both in the international community and from the African Union. There was also high autocratic sponsorship and it's created quite a highly contested environment for the consolidation of authoritarianism within the state. So where does Myanmar sit in this? And why is this important to look at? And what strategies do these two groups use to defend their position? So what we'd expect to see with norm defenders or countries and states and national organizations that support democracy promotion and support the anti-coup norm is we would expect to see them engage in strategies of competition building. So that can be free supporting the ousted government or limiting the capacity of the coup plotting government. And that can be free signaling statements, official actions in barbos or sanctions. Whereas norm resistors engaged in a slightly different way. And so they look to limit this competition to build a legitimacy of the coup government to say that it is for authority. And they build that capacity of coup butters and this will be financial support signaling official statements, visitations or technical support. So what about Myanmar and what are we actually seeing. So we look at the international community. I would say the response has been lukewarm at best. Whilst there has been a UN General Assembly official statement and there was a lot of single cases of diplomatic outcry. There's actually been very little affirmative action or punitive action to actually condemn or really pressure the coup plotters to capitulate and to stand out government. Whilst the US has condemned the government, the sanctions have been very particular. So sanctions on only some military leaders rather than on the state more broadly and not really creating an environment that makes the government they currently haven't sustainable. And the UK has done a very similar thing to the US here they have condemned the coup they have put on sanctions on military leaders. And they also and this is, you know, maybe an intentional consequence is when the ambassador was locked out of the embassy in London, and they did very little to support both the ambassador, or to really say about what the, what that experience was in London. And so you can see there's almost an intentional diplomatic failure that they legitimize the current government the coup government by not acting in favor of the Astrid government. China, so when we move to the normal resistors we see a more kind of consistent reaction. China clearly have focused on it they have continued with their view on limited engagement in domestic issues. So they did acknowledge the coup which was kind of in the same way a little bit surprising, but the response has been muted support they have blocked UN sanctions they had done previously and other cues. But maybe not as much as we would actually expect, given China's close ties to Myanmar, and its vested interests, and this kind of shows that actually stability is the main priority for China that they're kind of concerned about this government. And they want to make sure that whilst their interests are defended, they're not overly supporting. Whereas when we compare this to Russia, we actually a very different reaction. Again, another autocratic sponsor, another norm resistor, but they have blocked all UN action in Myanmar, and they've become a much more active and engaged supporter and backer of the State Council in a way they hadn't been previously. So they've really developed their engagement with Myanmar and this is included visitations to and from Russia, red carpet treatments and high levels of signaling that we didn't see in the previous regime or previous periods. So Russia is really coming out as a backer and authoritarian sponsor of this regime. So what about ASEAN? Well, historically, ASEAN has been a very quiet engage on the anti-cunam, whilst they've tried to bring in democratic parts to their charter, overall this is mostly failed, and they mostly stick out of each of those domestic issues. So it was expected, as with Thailand, that there be very limited action by ASEAN. But actually what we see is they are engaging, they are developing some support for the anti-cunam in April. They agreed a five point consensus with the State Administration Council to limit that power and to see the return to democracy. And when the Myanmar military refused or failed to adhere to this, they then snubbed the military leadership in October 2021. And they were not invited to the ASEAN summit at the time. They would only accept a civilian leader. And so this is a major shift for ASEAN in terms of its policy for engaging with democracy promotion within Asia. And if we look at the cases we talked about before of Haiti in Egypt, this is a major change on the international environment. Regional organizations are a major part of the anti-cunam promotion and realization. And ASEAN up until now has not engaged with it at all. And now we're seeing some moves towards this. Now I would argue this is a very tactical move for ASEAN as they are concerned about the stability in the region, but it's still a major shift in our understanding of norms. So what is the struggle for the anti-cunam? Well, we still see an inconsistent international approaches application very much tied to interests and strategic importance. Myanmar is not a strategic importance to most Western states, and that to some degree accounts for the lack of punitive policies we've seen engaged within Myanmar. The rising norm resistors, autocratic regimes have increased their power, and we're seeing that with increasing action and openness about how they are going to support new autocratic regimes within the international environment. But regional organizations do present an opportunity for realization. And so here we can see, are we moving from non-contestation on the international stage to some level of non-realization on the regional stage that actually ASEAN is beginning to engage with the reality of the implications of the anti-cunam. For Myanmar, the outlook is bleak. The international environment is very overall supportive. There is high autocratic sponsorship, but there's also very limited engagement by non-defenders to support or try and build this competition at the local or domestic level. So we're seeing increasing oppression, delayed elections, with very little limitations on that or punitive action. And the question becomes, is there crisis ahead? It's a pandemic, poverty in Myanmar is very high, and political unrest and violence remains. And so where is this going to lead to in the next few years? So I think there was a strong opportunity for the solidation within Myanmar. Norm resistance has resulted in increasing authoritarian resilience within this post-Q government. And we are unlikely, I would say, to see the elections coming in those next few years as promised by the current government. There's very little incentive for them to hold them. So the outlook for Myanmar remains relatively bleak in terms of understanding the anti-Q norm in its struggle in Myanmar. So hopefully it makes sense. I look forward to your questions. Thanks very much. Great. We can have Henry just jump in if you'd like with any sort of comments. And then, yeah, audience, please do either ask live or hi, Merv, and you're here too. So perfect live as well too. Yeah, but Henry, the floor is yours right now. Great. Thanks very much. And I've got, I think, five points that I want to maybe comment on and just by way of background. So I've been working in and on Myanmar, but mostly from the kind of looking at internal actors and working with internal actors. So my view is more one from Myanmar out rather than from outside in. But I was wondering, first of all, the first point is around what also mentioned the coup in Thailand and the lack of any kind of real substantial international condemnation of that. I mean, at best, a slap on the wrist if even that. And even though there is local resistance, local protest, there's also probably a sign that majority were kind of saying, OK, that's fine. We can live with this because this brings stability. How much do you think that the Thai, the reactions to the Thai cruise and their position is a nominally democratic but very much military influenced government? And that was sort of a what the top model expected as well that this would be the same way that their coup would go and how much they might have miscalculated, especially the local resistance to them. But also some of the international reactions, for example from ASEAN. My question is then around the other big actor in Myanmar externally, China. And if you want to comment a bit on sort of some of the other aspects of China's engagement with Myanmar and whether we see some kind of hedging of bets there, in terms of China's engagement with some of the ethnic armed organizations, some of them like the United States Army have been completely second to uncouth and said that that's not going to be their fight. Whereas others where China does have some leverage or at least sort of pragmatic working relations like the Kachin Independence Army have been very much at the forefront of fighting in the north of Myanmar. And how much of China, I mean China could do more to try and clamp down on that but doesn't seem to be willing to do that and then what your views on what's happening there. The third point would be around the national unity government and whether the time does cool well so that they didn't really become the, or didn't have the, literally didn't have the time to become the government. But if they are seen internally by a lot of people in Myanmar as the legitimate de facto government, but for external actors that's been a difficult entity to engage with, as they didn't get sworn in as the official government and what I've heard from discussing some of the international actors in like the UN system and the donor governments there is also then this concern that with its de facto declaration of war, the NUG has made this situation more problematic for outside supporters to engage with it, but at the same time internally there's massive pressure on the energy to declare D-Day and then finally start that concerted military resistance to the coup. So that's three first points. The fourth point is about how you would see some humanitarian aid playing a role, especially sort of with the worsening economic situation, probable famines coming up, COVID-19, and so some of the attempts by various actors to maybe find inroads, kind of possibly similar, trying to echo what happened after Cyclone Nargis with Bill Richardson going to NAPEDAR this week and kind of acting as a possible intermediary under humanitarian guys. If that is something that might give the TACMADAR or the SAC a way out, sort of a space saving way, or is that something that might consolidate their power and how that might play out and if that might be a possible solution to this. And lastly, question would be, you said that there's a strong case for consolidation in Myanmar and how you would sort of see then, I would fully agree with you looking at the outside actors that there's no one really seriously pushing back, but at the same time on the ground, the SAC has been unable to assert its authority and its legitimacy is very close to no internally. And the local PDFs, the ethnic armed group are increasingly making it impossible for the local governance structures to function and then CDMs probably waning with the civil disobedience movement, but that's really also hampered the possibilities of governing the country for the SAC and whether or not this might lead to a position where then the facts on the ground as messy as they are, might force the SAC to back down one way or another. But thanks again for this presentation and thanks for having me as a discussant and I came forward to discuss in one. Yeah, cool. See, I think, I mean, on the, the Thailand point, I mean, I've been in me, I've been in Thailand for I think two of the most recent coups and it's like the TV goes green for a while and you're like, Oh, wonderful. And it is, unless you're in the capital, it's very just like, oh yeah, it's just, you know, I think the most we've ever, I've ever seen a disruption to life in Thailand for the coup was, you can't go close to the border anymore, where we're working. And I think, yeah, that has very much defined how coups are seen in ASEAN, I think that's a really good point. And I think that we could say that that's, you know, in some ways, part of why the Tamil dorm is calculated, maybe the domestic response. But I think also, I mean, if we look at Myanmar's history itself and the coups that Myanmar has experienced in the past, I mean, there's always been a very strong opposition to military government in Myanmar, a very strong belief in political protest and engaging in street protests. I think they will have known that that was a likely thing to happen. And I think when we talk about, you know, timing, it was a very well timed coup, you know, it was the day that they were meant to sit, they didn't become legitimized, but also it happened at a time when there was a pandemic, but there was, you know, when we talk about the building of Napidor and the isolation of the capital, there is a lot there to suggest that, you know, this was a very strategic move, both long term and short term. So I think there was a miscalculation there in terms of how maybe the international community would respond and how it be seen, because it wasn't just easily done for it. I think that's the answer, and we haven't sat down and just allowed Myanmar to get on with it. But at the same time, I think there is a historical precedent for going out on the streets and really protesting when the military decides to overstep its boundaries and leave barracks. And I think, I think an expectation that that wouldn't happen isn't realistic. I think it's more that they knew this was a good opportunity, given the international environment around COVID, given the government hadn't been legitimized yet, given how it was going to go if the new government came in and the space they would sit in. So I think there was a miscalculation to some degree, but I don't think it was that much about that expectation on Thailand. I think it's about ASEAN, I think it's about, you know, they hand it, not so they didn't have domestic protests. I think they always expected those. I think they hoped that COVID would limit them. And I think they hope that COVID would limit the likelihood of intervention or interaction by the international community. One, did that answer your question? Yeah. China is a really interesting one. I think, you know, especially when we get into looking at the border lands and when we first started talking about the Q&A, there's two storylines. When we look at Myanmar, we always have to remember there's two storylines, there's what's happening in Rangoon and Napidul and the Central States, and there's what's happening in the border lands, and they don't match up. And they very rarely agree with one another. And we can see that with organizations like the KIO and like the United States Army, very limited engagement with what's happening in the Central State. And we can also, what we can see is a major increase in violence in these areas that the Tavern Midor have not been limited anymore by civilian government and they have really gone for it, especially in Northern Shand State. I mean the situation in Northern Shand State is dire, and that has increased dramatically since the start of the coup. Whilst it was building there, it's definitely gone over and it's been very upsetting to watch that kind of happen over the last kind of, you know, six months that that return to violence that has been, whilst the NCA was very limited. I think, you know, it did stop a lot of the direct violence by then. But now we see this kind of engagement in this very violent, very direct policy. And China's engagement in that I think is very interesting because obviously China's been seen as a partner for both funding international organizations, but also funding that the military regimes are the local elites within Myanmar, especially when they're not happy with Yangon. And we've definitely seen that that when Yangon hasn't done what China's wanted, new funding has come into places like the United States Army. So I think China's strategy this whole time has been stability and capacity, it does not want increased violence on its borders. It wants its investment projects, a lot of its electricity for the West is based in Myanmar. It's signed a load of memorandums the year before the coup happened. So I think there is an incentive there too, they will support the new government if the new government is able to deliver on the financial investment that China has made. If Myanmar's current government is unable to secure that, I think China's, you know, its whole aim is to make sure its network towards the Indian Ocean is secured. So I think, I think it's, you know, that variable relationship that China's always had with Myanmar, which is tacit support, but underlying with this idea that on the delivery of certain objectives and if that comes into threat then I think that relationship will fall apart as it has done in the past. On your point on the national unity government. Yeah, I mean I think this is a major issue isn't it like that. That what's happening domestically and the support for the energy domestically in terms of that government has now been sitting for nine months they have an online government. They did do a swearing in ceremony and they are seen as legitimate in large parts if not all of Myanmar, but from the civilian point of view, versus the international community who seem to not engage with them at all or don't see them as legitimate and I think this goes back to the pressure that the energy and agency she faced during the previous transition period which is what the domestic community wants and what the domestic audiences want and what the international community want to see are completely different things. And so trying to please both of these audiences is very difficult when they don't have full control of the government. They didn't have full control of the government during the transition period and they definitely don't have control of the government now. And so we're stuck in a situation where, you know, I think a lot of you know they don't want to go to war I think they want to focus on democratizing they want to focus on building the capacity of Myanmar state. And yet, what the domestic audiences want, or it's always nice it is this legitimization is pushed against the military because what they want from democracy is the end of military rule. And so then we see this push towards having a more federalized government and a more federalized military having having that federal army having the PDFs engage retraining so that the only military they have it's not the military that keeps taking over the government. So I think I think the energy is stuck in a very difficult position of how best to legitimize do they focus on domestic, or do they focus on the international. And I think they feel or it definitely seems to me that they don't feel like the international community is listening to them. And I mean to be fair, the evidence for the international community is pretty poor at this point for the energy and I think that is that is in some ways an error on the international community's point this government had been elected, had been raised to be sworn in, and it's made it predominantly of people who were in government before. So I think there is an issue there and it shows this issue and this legality issue of like, what is an ousted government where do they sit and I mean this, this always goes back and I think you know the more you talk to the domestic people the more you have this issue. This is exactly like 1988 all over again. And the frustrations that that has built between domestic audiences mean the national community. The issue of humanitarian aid I mean yeah as I said like you know me I was heading towards quite serious crisis, the level of poverty especially in Yangon where the protests have meant there's been very little industry over the last few months where people haven't been at work it's major in the war zones where the humanitarian aid is now no longer getting through and it's been needed for years is a major issues that you know I didn't we can deny the crisis and very concerning point to in terms of Myanmar's need for humanitarian aid very much like I have to cycle in August. But I think what we cannot deny having watched Myanmar over the last 10 to 20 years is the politicalization of humanitarian aid within Myanmar and the provision of it. And we look at the Rohingya crisis for that and how long it took to get any international involvement in Sitway and still when that has come in the risk that international community you know international workers have faced the deaths we've seen that the limited engagement that has been provided. And then on the other side you know when we move when the most recent transition period happened and a lot of humanitarian aid moved into the center of the stage trying to facilitate that movement towards democracy. It took a lot of aid away from the complex zones, where it's really needed now struggling to get back in and build that humanitarian aid and that capacity in those environments where people really need it. So I think there needs to be a question there over, you know, both a short term and long term strategy, because it is politicized. It will legitimize the current government if we go back through the state and going through the state over the last transition period has left a number of communities in Myanmar extremely vulnerable and extremely pressured to come into the state, even with the military engagement, and to legitimize a government that they don't see as legitimate just to access humanitarian aid. So I think there is an issue there over we cannot deny the politicization of humanitarian aid despite the need for it. And I think that's it. That's something that we need to try very carefully over and I know a lot of international community are working very hard to provide the aid was trying not to legitimize that government. And I think that's a very, you know, that's a very hard line and what, what, what, when do we tip that scale and I think that's a big question as it's always been in Myanmar during crisis times. So I don't think there's a tidy answer there and I don't think there will be any time soon. And in terms of legitimacy for the, for the, for the State Administration Council, I mean, I agree, like, they're not, you know, they're not popular in the country. I mean, they won't survive. I think evidence would suggest from Myanmar's historical perspective that that has very limited impact on their survival. The military has a very strong hold over the economy. It has very strong control over industries. And when needed, it can produce a large number of people to protest in its favor as we've seen throughout Myanmar over the last few months, whether they are actually in support of the government is completely different matter. So I think, you know, whilst there is a great question over the legitimacy of this government, I think there is quite a possibility that it will become consolidated. And I think what's most likely to happen is what happens in a lot of post cases and has happened in Myanmar in the past, which is we will have the election. But the USDP will be repackaged or the any LDB allowed to to engage in these elections. I don't know. And so I think we'll see another version of most of authoritarianism, military backed, most of authoritarianism brought in that secures the military position with that be under a different title again. You know, you know, we've had the SLOC, we've had the SPDC, we're now at the SEC. So we're going to have a different version of the military in package that I don't think that would be a surprising result here. The role of the ethnic groups and civil disobedience movements, I mean, has been very important and remain very important in really articulating the opposition to what is happening in Myanmar and facilitating that. But I think, and I think it will remain until we can come up with a, you know, the national unity government is working towards the issue of the Federated Army is this issue around at the ethnic groups often feel like they're only noted during times of crisis. And then once we leave times of crisis, they are not important anymore to the broader public within Myanmar. And so this issue of that two story of how do you bridge that gap when actually had very different experiences of state throughout. So I think, you know, I mean, I see the unifying of those ethnic groups and the move towards a stronger opposition to the central state in Myanmar I think is highly unlikely because we've tried and well, you know, there have been so many attempts to unify the rebel movements within and build an opposition to the military as it is right now. And all of them have really struggled because actually these movements are very entrenched the most from a plus 60 years old at this point. And they say they build on their own, their own legitimacy there and this gets back to my own work on like, you know, these groups in some respects are built on survival. So I think there isn't an opportunity for them to engage and they are engaging they are trading people they are bringing people in we've seen such the number of engaging in these ethnic armies. But is that going to present a serious threat to the military, given its size, given its capacity, given its entrenchment within the central state. I think it's unlikely. Great. Thank you, Anna. I mean, I have a question Henry won't be surprised where this question is coming from because it's embedded in my own curiosities to you. You've mentioned you've touched a bit on political economy aspects of the coup and of, I guess, I guess my my question around that which is to be to probe a bit further. In terms of the external actors you talk about. I wonder how does the international market and market based actors play in influencing in your kind of your theoretical or conceptual framework of, you know, which way in the arm are going to go like we as an external actor how does, you know, market actors play. And then I just wonder, and this could be minimal but I wonder what role if at all does diaspora populations in other countries also play in in pressure one way or the other. That's fun. So, yeah, just my two external actors to think about. Definitely. And the market actors was really I think it's going to increasingly interesting question because of course we've seen so much more aid and so much more international engagement in Myanmar in the last position period, when we really opens up and engaged much more broadly than we've seen previously in Myanmar, which means such as including an isolated country so that there's a big question over how the markets going to react and I mean Norway's telling us just pulled out. That was it sounds just wasn't because the military was asking it to record to give information that it wasn't comfortable, it pulled out and I think this is this is the problem for Myanmar is a lot of people are a lot of organizations, I would say in a lot of ways, preemptively invested in Myanmar in the hopes to sustain and build on that and their development of Myanmar and now they're stuck in a situation where the state hasn't democratized this highly military has remained highly militarized and it's now a highly repressive highly militarized state. And so do they hope that that ends that the promise of elections goes ahead and we have at least some form of competition within the state and some move towards a more civilianized government again, or do they pull out early on, and then leave the question that I think here is raising which is like, at what point is that we look at adding to the kind of humanitarian crisis that could appear. And so I think a lot of market actors are left in a very difficult position with Myanmar, they want to invest, and there's a big incentive to invest as well. I wrote paper on the use of genocide and democratization process of how the economy was being used as the kind of carrot to bring the international community and legitimize what was happening and kind of pulling a will over what was happening in other parts of the state. Because actually Myanmar is highly underdeveloped there's a lot of investment opportunities from a lot of different states and a lot of different organizations that if they you know it's almost as that last frontier and if they don't do it now then China then Russia will invest and actually won't be there eventually. So there's definitely incentives to stay, but then it becomes a question of how long and I think terminal is a really interesting case of like how brands and international financial investors are making such a pull out and a number of the banks are already considering some of the things of how long do they stay, something to do with the stability as well. So I think I think there's a big question over international market actors in terms of Myanmar and how that develops and I think we'll see more of that over the next couple of months as we see whether these elections happen because I think right now a lot of people are just waiting to see. Seeing the end of the repressive period and a return to some level of stability or are we going to see another price sink happen and if we do that then I think more and more begin to pull out. And DS where I think it's it's an interesting mix in Myanmar as you have refugee diaspora in in Bangladesh obviously was in Thailand I mean there's almost 100,000 current that have been in Thailand for a very long period of time. And show them on communities there from the war zones along Myanmar's borders, but then you also have, you know, a lot of Burmese in Singapore in Australia in the US and UK, Canada, and they have been very active in the support of the national unity in really pushing for the international community to support and their countries to support the national unity government to understand the complexities of the conflict and the crisis in Myanmar. But with limited impact, so that the funding is there the support is there and the diaspora definitely been a very active role and in terms of helping support communities and providing humanitarian assistance within Myanmar and funds to the country, where people are also a lot of teachers and doctors lost their jobs for engaging within the civil disobedience movement. But the impact there is is how long will that last how long the interest of either the international markets with the diaspora last in the reality of if Myanmar returns to authoritarianism. That's interesting. I think also to just again to push the market actors and then I'll be quiet Anna. You know there. We see there's a lot of. I like how you describe frontier right because there's a lot of interest in in capture like in security and defense technologies right. There's a lot of interest in being in these spaces as spaces for innovation in their own developing their, you know, various different defense mechanisms or whatnot and I just wonder, you know, I think. So this is my, you know, political economy had on is just the underpinning causes for actually sustaining this crisis right who is benefiting from this crisis and you know potentially looking at some international security actors who might have been very sensitive for various reasons and I wonder if you've looked at that or if that's if that even exists in Myanmar. Yeah I mean I mean we can definitely that with Russia for instance they've invested so much in the last couple of weeks in providing monitoring equipment new innovative engages with that because we almost quite you know the tunnels very open about it's track. It's activists to track the people who are who are being outspoken about that. I think the more interesting places like Facebook, but which is highly used for all communication in Myanmar, including interviews meetings work anything everything on Facebook news, whatever you want, which was a very strange experience in the first one there and I was like oh we just use it for everything. But it is is used for literally everything. And so that leaves market for site Facebook in a very open position because actually that's what's being used to track a lot of the activists that was being used to monitor people. And it's free the phones and it's free the internet that we're seeing a lot of this, you know, development of like the security apparatus coming in and really engaging so. There definitely are people who are building in an invading we can definitely see Russia's investment is highly very much into security technologies. But I think the use of them is actually leaving other companies in a much more comfortable position of what they do and how do they feel about facilitating these kinds of actions and the risks that leads to that. And I think, yeah, there are definitely companies as an investments that are benefiting from this political crisis. Whether they will continue to I think is the other question, because at a certain point you have how much technology can one bite it to watch it and to listen in. But also if you have a more oppressive state there is that political on the aspect of the black market in Myanmar was always very popular. And it was your frontier into Asia and to Sian and that's continued. The drugs trade is increasing again along the borders and so there is the element of the war economy is coming back into play that always been in the borderlands coming much more into the center, both in terms of production but increasingly Myanmar and Sian as a marketplace. So when they couldn't sell the drugs were just the drugs were in Thailand rebuilt up more recently, the drugs market in Myanmar market absolutely flooded. And so we've seen an increase in interest tendency in a lot of Sian and kitchen communities to have to be quite disturbingly high levels so there is definitely that incentives, but it's how that builds and I think that's what I mean you know what some actors will pull out. But there's always a new economy to pull into that environment and to really sustain and build that environment. And as you see with China like was they don't they do want stability, they will use the political crisis environment in Myanmar along those conflictable lands to their advantage to make sure they're getting what they want for the state. So I think you when we look more at the regional actors on the local level it's quite interesting to look at how quiet they have been and how they have sustained this government or are waiting to see. So I think it's quite interesting when it in terms of understanding that we move away from maybe the big international actors into a more regional focus. So I think we have our audience that are sitting quite quietly hopefully they're absorbing in all of this really interesting information and discussion I just, I mean we're approaching the end of our talk and I just want to I guess give the floor to you and just around kind of a conclusions I mean we're painting such a kind of a bleak picture for Myanmar and I just wonder, you know, what do you think given your research, you know, both on the ground but more, you know, international focused what, what pressure points what sort of things tides need to turn in order for, you know, I guess, maybe a bit more of a hopeful future, if that if you think that's possible. I do and I think it is bleak picture right now and I think one of the things sometimes gets missed out these stories, especially when we're looking at international levels the resilience communities. These transition periods Myanmar are very common, very normal, they've gone through multiple crews and meet multiple military governments and they have always pushed to keep fighting for their rights, whether that be our version of democracy but at the same time you know they want more liberation, they are high defenders of that and I think what it highlights and what I've always felt on working in Myanmar is the international community. It wants to aid Myanmar if it wants to work and help Myanmar develop is that it needs to better understand and critically engage with what is happening on the grounds in Myanmar because often what happens is it's treated either like another Asian country or developed country. And so I think it gives us the opportunity to really critically look at how we engage in complex conflict environments, how we engage in political crises and how we understand them. Because the opportunities are there to help sustain this government to help build new democratic futures to help build liberal policy and improve the environment within Myanmar quite easily. There has to be the incentives to do it. And I think you know as Henry rightly highlighted you know the National Unity Government is there. International acts on the ground are there. And yet we're still seeing this this kind of step away in this kind of we need to delegitimize this military government, but an unwillingness to then be punitive about it. And so I think at some point you have to make a decision and you're going to tell them they need to be a democracy and really push that and penalize them and really take active action in that environment. Or are you going to say that actually you know there needs to be more support to what is a highly underdeveloped country and provide that financial support so that can be you know if we take the modernization theory approach to it some level of development to allow these things to move forward more organically at home. But I think to say you know Myanmar's a lost cause and no one should be interested in it. It's a very bleak way to look at it. I think Myanmar's the area if you start working on it is very hard to pull out because it's very complex environment but it's also one of those environments where I've had the most people at the communities are great to work with and I don't do the communities on the ground. Yes they don't like the military state does that stop them having you know building their own liberal spaces, adapting their own resilience for those environments not at all and a lot of my research has looked at how communities adapt dramatically to make sure that they provide the best survival and the best environment they can. And I really love that about Myanmar and Myanmar's communities and I think that's true of lots of countries. So I think we sometimes need to step away from looking at the state and the state apparatus and actually look at how communities engage with these issues because actually communities live in them and live very well in them with the limitations that that state provides. That's such a great way to end your talk Anna, thank you so much and I think yeah Henry and I were both nodding I think we're all nodding you know when a majority of our work comes from like on the ground everyday experiences yeah certainly that resonates where you see the resilience the hope to the living a life otherwise right then what the state kind of paint so I want to thank you so much and Henry so much too for for coming in and for for discussing your research with us today. So, and thank the audience for listening intently I hope they are, you know, sometimes we can treat this as a podcast to I don't know if people are cleaning or having a cup of tea or what they're doing but you, this was great to listen to so thank you so much for your time both of you thank you the audience and tune in next week where we have a roundtable panel talking about transitioning in out and up in academia so. Yeah, great, thank you all very much for coming and have a wonderful afternoon.