When authoritarian innovations fail: Labour governance in Myanmar's reform era and beyond

Abstract

The concept of authoritarian innovations provides a means of interpreting labour governance practices that claim to uphold democratic values and international labour standards while restricting labour participation and genuine voice in the workplace. Two underexplored dimensions of this literature are (a) how authoritarian practices are utilised by power elites in ‘hybrid’ state formations and (b) under what conditions they may be discarded in favour of a return to direct forms of coercion and violence. In this article, we examine these questions with reference to Myanmar, where there was a decade of experimentation with democracy before a reversion to military-dominated authoritarian rule in February 2021. In the first half of that decade, space opened under a military-led government for decidedly more democratic labour relations, although labour governance reforms were designed and operationalised in ways that constrained the strength and reach of trade unions. In the second half, a democratically elected civilian-led government presided over the contraction of the space available to organised labour. By tracking the alignment of meso-level authoritarian practices against the changing macro-level character of Myanmar's political landscape, this article contributes to theoretical debates within the emerging literature on authoritarian innovations in labour governance.