military reserved 25 per cent of parliamentary seats for itself and included provisos under which it might revoke civilian power by declaring a state of emergency.4 In this sense, it would be more accurate to view Myanmar’s transition in 2010 less as a transition to democracy than to a diarchy5 with competing forms of government. For the generals, being able to take advantage of the democratic opening of the country to foreign investment while limiting the space in which they shared governance with civilians seemed a winning strategy; it prolonged a principle of sovereignty that depended on the personal power of military strongmen. Assuming the new post of State Counsellor after the 2015 elections, Aung San Suu Kyi tried to subordinate the military’s power under a democratic idea of popular sovereignty and the rule of law. Two attempts to change constitutional clauses to reduce the role of the Tatmadaw, made in 2015 and 2020, failed.6 Meanwhile, the military was able to entrench its economic power through new companies that participated in the opening up of the Myanmar economy.7 One such provision is number 417, with which the military attempted to justify the constitutionality of the coup; see Melissa Crouch, “Myanmar Coup on the Pretext of a Constitutional Fig Leaf”, 4 February 2021, https://melissacrouch. com/2021/02/04/myanmar-coup-on-the-pretext-of-a-constitutional-fig-leaf/ (accessed 26 March 2021). 4 Diarchy was a constitutional feature of British colonial rule that tied Burma administratively to British India between 1923 and 1935. It was a form of limited self-government that allotted local rule over certain areas of government and which attempted to triangulate autocracy and democracy. 5 “Voting Failed for [Changing] the Clause 436; Tatmadaw Will Continue to Hold the Power to Amend”, The Irrawaddy, 13 March 2020, https://burma.irrawaddy. com/news/2020/03/13/217834.html (accessed 17 March 2021). 6 7 One prominent example was the telecommunications concern Mytel; see “How Hundreds of Millions of Dollars From Mytel Subscribers Will Flow to Military Generals”, Justice for Myanmar, 4 March 2021, https://www.justiceformyanmar. org/stories/how-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-from-mytel-consumers-willflow-to-military-generals (accessed 17 March 2021). 3 21-J07648 01 Trends_2021-7.indd 3 28/4/21 9:34 AM