Global Overview and Myanmar Democratic Transition

Myanmar transition since 2010 is praised as “Myanmar spring” by the international media due to its smooth democratization process. The 2015 post election of Myanmar is again praised by the international community for two factors: one is free and fair election which is one of the core values of democracy and another is peaceful transfer of power from semi-civilian government to elected civilian government. Myanmar democratic transition is now on her way and democratic consolidation is necessary for the completed transition. In the global agenda, the past two decades have witnessed the most remarkable development toward democracy, which has been referred to as third wave of democratization. Since then, democracy replaced the military or “quasi-civilian” regimes. It is an opportunity for Myanmar today to learn from the global trends of democratic transition. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, trends in seven different regions converged to change the political landscape of the world: the fall of right-wing authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe in the mid-1970s, the replacement of military dictatorship by elected civilian governments across Latin American from late 1970s to late 1980s, the decline of authoritarian rule in parts of East and South Asia starting in the mid-1980s, the collapse of the communist regime in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1900s, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the post-Soviet republics in 1991, the decline of one-party regimes in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of the 1990s and a weak but recognize liberalizing trend in some Middle East countries in the 1990s. Despite these regional democratic trends, some countries continue to be beset by unstable parliamentary institutions, weak rule of law, and inchoate systems of political representation, chronic corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and a lack of social justice