Dean: Myanmar Conclusion The decrease of authoritarianism does not necessarily lead to a decline in surveillance for political and social control, and Myanmar is an exemplary case. Its transition has been described as dynamic by all analysts, swayed by the particularly strong democracy assumption, in part due to the abolishment of the direct military rule and the rise to power by the former democracy icons, the NLD and the Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. This article has followed the call by Albertus and Menaldo (2012) to include the examination of the state coercive apparatus when analysing (democratic) transitions, as the role of armed forces is particularly relevant to Myanmar. Owing to the legacy of one of the most resilient military regimes of the contemporary era, the country is locked in a unique power-sharing arrangement between the military and elected politicians. The article has demonstrated how, alongside the maintenance of the military control, including during the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, surveillance remains comparable to that in the past or is even wider, while its pattern has changed. The change of pattern involves the shift from high intensity force to low intensity coercion of lesser visibility, with shifting targets and modes of performance. State coercive capacity, including the size, expenditure and revenues of the armed forces have been maintained and surveillance for political and social control is further enhanced by the fast developing telecommunications opening up more extensive and easier opportunities for monitoring. Many relevant laws enable neither checks nor balances, nor is their “fixing” prioritized, or even possible, given the prevailing political configurations, interests or priorities. More widely, thus, the struggle against surveillance in Myanmar is not related to struggle over the idea of privacy construed as something that we “own” (Lyon 2007: 174) in the Global North—it is still related to the struggle over basic rights to be free from harassment and persecution based on political, social and religious convictions. Acknowledgement The research leading to this chapter was funded by the Estonian Research Agency grant IUT 3-2 ‟Culturescapes in transformation: towards an integrated theory of meaning making.” References Albertus, Michael and Victor Menaldo. 2012. “Coercive Capacity and the Prospects for Democratization.” Comparative Politics 44(2):151-169. Amnesty International. 2015. “Going Back to the Old Ways: A new Generation of Prisoners of Conscience in Myanmar.” October 8. Accessed July 4, 2017. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/2457/2015/en/. Article 19. 2017. “Myanmar: Telecommunications Law, 2013.” Accessed June 29, 2017. https://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/38665/Myanmar-analysis--8-March-2017.pdf. Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). 2017. “March 2017 AAPP Monthly Chronology.” Accessed May 12, 2017. http://aappb.org/2017/04/march-2017-aapp-monthly-chronology/, Aung, Kham. 2017. “Learning Myanmar internet market 2016 and planning for 2017.” Myanmar Entrepreneur, January 16. Accessed May 19, 2017. http://myanmar-entrepreneur.com/2017/01/16/learning-myanmar-internet-market-2016-andplanning-for-2017/. Aung Kyaw Min. 2016. “CSOs urge amendment of guest registration law.” Myanmar Times, August 11. Accessed May 19, 2017. http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/21882-csos-urge-amendment-of-guest-registration-law.html. Aung, Lwin Oo. 2004. “Jakarta Demands Clarification on Embassy Bugging.” The Irrawaddy, July 14. Accessed May 10, 2017. http://www2.irrawaddy.com/print_article.php?art_id=3731, Brownlee, Jason. 2009. “Portents of Pluralism: How Hybrid Regimes Affect Democratic Transition.” American Journal of Political Science 53(3): 515–32. Bünte, Marco. 2011. “Burma's Transition to 'Disciplined Democracy': Abdication or Institutionalization of Military Rule?” GIGA Working Paper 177. Bünte, Marco. 2016. “Myanmar’s protracted transition: arenas, actors and outcomes.” Asian Survey 56(2):369–391. Callahan, Mary. 2001. “Burma: Soldiers as State Builders.” In Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military, edited by Muthiah Alagappa, 413–433. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Surveillance & Society 15(3/4) 503