Authoritarian Control of Buddhism Under Burma’s Than Shwe in Comparative Perspective

• In Event: The State and Religious Leadership: Empowerment, Disempowerment, and its Consequences

Abstract

Under Than Shwe’s military dictatorship, religion - and particularly Buddhism - was considered both a source of regime legitimacy and of potential political instability. Buddhism not only was - and still is - practiced by the majority, but Buddhist monks have also been influential spiritual figures in Burmese society, and are closely linked to the population. Preliminary fieldwork findings suggest that the regime used a differential approach to preventing and controlling dissent among Buddhist monks, involving three mechanisms: coercion, cooptation and containment. Through its State Sangha Maha Nayaka, the regime coopted a majority of politically faithful monks and sought to manage indirectly the affairs of their monasteries. It coerced monks involved in underground democratic activism, and closely surveilled the monasteries in which those monks operated. The regime further contained monks who operated independently from the State Sangha Maha Nayaka. The differential mechanisms employed to control the religious sphere were not specific to Than Shwe’s military dictatorship. I support this observation based on an analysis of China’s single-party regime’s dealings with official and unregistered Protestant house churches since the 1990s.

Author

• Marie-Ève Reny, Université de Montréal