Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2019. xi, 146 pp. (B&W photos.) US$95.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5017-4008-4.
Rebel Politics is a unique contribution to the field of Burma Studies. Years of investigation and nine months of fieldwork allowed the author, David Brenner, to propose a unique and compelling answer to an intriguing puzzle: why did the Karen National Union (KNU) sign a ceasefire with the military-proxy government in 2012 while, almost concomitantly, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) resumed fighting in 2011 after a seventeen-year ceasefire?
To answer this question, the author organizes his book into five chapters, laying out the conceptual framework in the first chapter before delving into the genealogy of Myanmar’s rebellion in chapter 2 and presenting his case studies in chapters 3 and 4. The final chapter brings the pieces back together in a compelling conclusion.
The argument of the author may be summarized as follows: The decision of the KNU and the KIA to return or exit the battlefield is the result of struggle within those movements over authority, involving different sets of actors, from the elites of the movement to its non-elite components. While elite fragmentation caused by competing leaders allows the Myanmar military to co-opt certain factions and push them toward accepting a ceasefire based on business incentives, discontents from below lead other factions to conquer power and renew the fighting by harvesting grassroot members’ grievances. Interestingly, upon reaching this conclusion, Brenner draws a very interesting parallel between the two organizations, highlighting that while, “from the outside, the strategies of the Kachin and Karen rebellions contrast with each other,” “shifting the perspective to the inside of the movements reveals striking parallels” (10). De facto, the suspension of the ceasefire agreement by the KNU in 2018 is interpreted as the result of growing discontent from a more radical faction (the KNU-concerned group) that is perceived as more legitimate by the grassroots than the one currently holding power.
To make this argument, Brenner shifts his perspective. Most studies examining Myanmar’s borderland conflicts have focused on the views from government-controlled areas. They also often fail to consider the inner workings of the different ethnic armed organizations and tend to view them as a monolithic grouping. To the contrary, Brenner embedded himself within the two organizations he studied and provides insightful elements on the power dynamics that exist between different factions of the same organization, and between the factions’ elites and grassroot members.
For the author, understanding why the KNU signed a ceasefire while the KIA abruptly ended negotiations with Nay Pyi Taw requires taking a relational approach and considering those armed groups as part of greater social space. For Brenner, the strategy of the armed groups vis à vis the ceasefire and broader negotiations with the government is the result not only of horizontal dynamics between leaders of different factions of a group, but also vertical dynamics between competing leaders and the grassroots level (from rank-in-file soldiers to passively supporting peasantry). While the literature on rebel movements and civil wars have focused mainly on horizontal dynamics to explain the fragmentation of groups in competing factions, and thus ultimately the weakening of the rebellions, Brenner’s bringing vertical ties and support networks back into study is a welcome contribution.
The conceptual framework developed by Brenner is extremely clear and mobilizes numerous concepts that are all useful to support his argument. The concept of social space, power, and habitus are well knit together into a broader framework that serves the argument that power, authority, and legitimacy are relational concepts grounded upon a foundation of social relations.
While one could be wary of the data collection method and the risk this presents of partial perspective, Brenner’s explains at length the coping strategies that allowed him to prevent such a shortcoming. With that, Brenner’s self-awareness of his positionality is another strength of the book.
Against these obvious positive qualities and the contribution this research makes to the field, engaging with the religious aspect of those rebellions and the role religion plays in creating cohesion or fragmentation within those groups could have been an interesting point to develop. The author does touch slightly about the religious dynamic of the rebellion when mentioning the breakaway of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) from the KNU or the importance of Kachin Baptist institutions. But this component is largely absent from the conversation; it is not only what most distinguishes the KNU from the KIA but also a key component of the social spaces in which those organizations evolve. The KNU has been, since its origin, a Christian-led armed group with a relatively strong presence of Karen Buddhists at the grassroots level. Yet, religion has never been a central component of the rebellion. By contrast, the KIA is a more religiously uniform movement that entered the rebellion following the strong push for Buddhism to be made the official religion of Myanmar, suggesting the centrality of the religious component. Nonetheless, in both cases the importance of Christianity in the social spaces the groups occupy could have provided an additional element in answering the puzzle Brenner attempts to address.
The 2021 military coup in Myanmar and the subsequent renewed armed resistance, not only from the borderlands but also from the central regions of the country, forced scholars in the field of Burma Studies to reflect deeply upon the dynamics that were at play during the real but ephemerous democratic transition the country experienced. Brenner’s study, taken in this context, is surely a must read for anyone seeking to understand why achieving peace in Myanmar’s borderland has always been challenging.
Constant Courtin
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver