The politics of authoritarianism: the state and political soldiers in burma, indonesia, and thailand by Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe M. A., University of British Columbia, 1990 B. A., University of Rangoon, 1961
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CONCLUSION: THE MILITARY AND THE POLITICS OF AUTHORITARIAN DOMINATION The Diversity and Complexity of Military Intervention and Authoritarian Regimes Soldiers in Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand have participated in politics and related processes in roles that are "normally" associated with politicians and political parties. The armed forces, by being deeply involved in politics and the socio-economic affairs of the state, have become the power base and political instrument of their respective chiefs and strongmen-rulers. Military leaders who have "captured" the state have established authoritarian orders which they believe are most congruent with their goals and vision of state-society order. As David Beetham found, they imposed an authoritarian domination of the state over society by removing the freedom (or autonomy) of organized groups to pursue their interests independently of the state.605 Typically, power is concentrated in the hands of the strongman-ruler, trusted subordinates, or the bureaucracy, as noted by Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Fred Riggs, Juan Linz, Gerald Heeger, and Beetham. Importantly, intermediary institutions that mediate state-society relations are abolished or manipulated and marginalized by the state. The country studies (Chapters 3-5) show that military intervention occurs in complex, diverse historical, socio-economic, and political settings, and is triggered by diverse events and factors, in line with the observations of Christopher Clapham, Edward Feit, T.O.Odetola, and others. That political orders established by the military and its chief-turned-ruler are not identical, as Clapham, Samuel Finer, Harold Crouch, among others, note, has also been shown in these chapters. Although "military regimes" are authoritarian, this thesis has shown that the complexity and degree of authoritarian control exercised by the state varies from regime to regime. It has also been found that these regimes vary not only in the degree of authoritarianism imposed, but also in the extent to which the military is autonomous vis-à-vis other state actors and elites, and relative to social forces. I have examined the phenomenon of military intervention in Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand, in the context of three interrelated factors that delineate the variance between military-authoritarian regimes. To reiterate briefly, they are: (1) the military and the politics of military intervention as they relate to the reorganization of power in the state; (2) the pivotal role of, and strategies employed by, the military strongman in the reorganization of political power, and the relationship between the ruler and the military; and (3) the degree of authoritarianism exercised, and the extent of military dominance. Four interrelated questions that are crucial to understanding military rule have been posed in this thesis. They are, first, why the military decides to stay on to rule and to reorganize political power; second, how the military decides to reorganize state power; third, what kind of military authoritarian pattern emerges when the military chief becomes the state strongman-ruler; and fourth, how the differences between, and within regimes, over time, are to be explained? Military Intervention, the Politics of "Staying On", and the Reorganization of State Power With respect to the politics of military intervention, I have found, in agreement with Crouch, that the phenomenon is related to what he calls "the total situation" of politics, where the military is a participant in a "free-for-all" struggle for power, dom-inance, control, and advantage, within a Huntingtonian "praetorian" environment.606 In this struggle, the prize is the state, and, as Clapham observes, it is almost inevitably won by the military. I have found, first, that the military stays on to rule because of its close identification, and self-image as, the creator, guardian, protector, and savior of both the nation and the state, and as well, as Samuel Fitch notes, the redefinition of its role expressed in terms of "national security" imperatives, broadly defined. The subsequent extension of military activities into non-military spheres, combined with the perception of its indispensibility, and/or perceived threats to the state itself or national unity, strongly compell it to take charge of, and run, the state and the political arena. In consequence, it is more closely linked to the "new" state, serving as its power base and the political instrument of its chief-and-ruler and his regime. Once in charge of the state, the military gains one more incentive to "stay on": the perquisites of political and economic power and enhanced status. Effective intervention and the military's ability to reorganize power is, however, contingent on its political cohesion, forged by a military strongman-and-unifier. In Burma, as in Indonesia (examined in Chapters 3 and 4), soldiers were polit-icized as part of the respective anti-colonial, nationalist movements. As discussed, after independence, the newly-installed powerholders -- the AFPFL Thakins and Sukarno, respectively -- depended heavily on the military to fend off a variety of forces which challenged the state in each of these. Moreover, military elites in both countries subscribed to a vision of state-society order which, as Manuel Garreton, Heeger, and Feit note, precludes the political participation of social forces which, in the military's view, exacerbates social conflicts, leads to general disorder, and subverts national unity. As shown, however, military intervention has not always led to the reorganiz-ation of political power as desired. In Burma (as seen in Chapter 3), the Tatmadaw stepped in to "save" the country from being fragmented due to the split within the rul-ing AFPFL party in 1958. The intervention was short-lived primarily because, as discussed, Ne Win was apparently not yet in undisputed control of the armed forces. He returned power to civilian rule. Military intervention in 1962, after Ne Win unified the military, led to the reorganization of power. Likewise in Indonesia (examined in Chapter 4), although the military strongly claimed dominance for itself as a revolutionary, socio-political force, its early incursions were ineffectual. It was only in 1959 after Nasution gained control of ABRI (after numerous failed regional-military rebellions), that ABRI was able to play an effective role in helping to reorganize the state, but in subordinacy to Sukarno. In 1965, ironically, it was the trauma of Gestapu in 1965, endangering both the state and the military itself, that united the military behind Suharto. It was this very tight cohesion, never before achieved, which allowed ABRI to assert its dominance effectively. In Thailand (Chapter 5), the phenomenon of military intervention has been, as in Burma and Indonesia, closely tied with the politics of the state. The military first participated in politics in 1932 as a political instrument of the "Promoters," whose goal was to reorganize power after the overthrow of the absolutist monarchy. However, due to the frequency of coups -- fifteen successful and failed coups between 1932 to 1991 -- the phenomenon is more complex, and even quite confusing. I have classified Thai coups into four general categories: one, coups that are aimed at re-organizing political power; two, those arising from problems with the functioning of the democratic process as being tried by authoritarian rulers; three, coups arising from a crisis situation, where the military can claim to have "saved" the state; and four, those arising from intra-military friction.607 I have found that the Thai case highlights a situation where military intervent-ion, in the absence of an authoritarian strongman-unifier, does not lead to the reorgan-ization of power or the state. The military was not unified between the fall of Thanom and Praphart in 1973 and Krit's death in 1976. After that, Prem, a de facto military strongman and yet democratically inclined, refused to restore military author-itarian rule. Thus, despite their importance as "king-makers" and "spoilers" from 1976 to 1985, the Young Turks were not successful in restoring authoritarianism or the military to political dominance. Secondly, regarding the question of how the military reorganizes the politics of the state, I have found that the organizational configuration of the state is restructured by the military so that political roles and institutions are transformed into bureaucratic ones. These are then usually placed under military control, or tutelage. Typically, the military regime seeks to limit participation by closing or restricting intermediary institutions and societal associations. This results in high state autonomy vis-à-vis society, and, correspondingly, the low autonomy of society relative to the state. However, military rulers -- Ne Win, Suharto, Thanom and Praphart -- have also set up political parties (or ruling parties) aimed at controlling, channeling, and limiting political participation, while at the same time, using them to gain legitimacy (with varying results).608 In Burma, Ne Win -- the undisputed military leader in 1962 -- employed the Tatmadaw to set up a military-"socialist" authoritarian state, where it served as the sole constitutive element of the BSPP regime. All political roles were bureaucratized, and, as discussed, were monopolized by soldiers. The political arena and legislative sphere were insulated by the military from society, and the state was made non-malleable, even by civilian bureaucratic elements, unlike in Indonesia and Thailand. In Indonesia, investigated in Chapter 4, I have found that since both the Guided Democracy and the New Order state are based on the 1945 Constitution, there is a continuity in the organizational configuration of the state. Suharto skillfully made the constitution work for him. Suharto and ABRI quite effectively depoliticized and deprived most of society of meaningful access to the state and politics, thus insulating the state and making it somewhat non-malleable by, and highly autonomous from, society. However, Suharto and the regime have established a quite effective mechan-ism to respond to the needs, mainly economic, of the politically subordinated (especially, rural) segments via patrimonial linkages and networks through village heads. However, in contrast to the BSPP regime, Suharto's New Order has allowed for a degree of what Linz terms as "limited pluralism": an ostensibly "open" political arena with more than one political party participating in politics. Also, in recent years, some Islamic elements have been given some access to politics as part of Suharto's power-balancing strategy. Those with economic clout -- ethnic Chinese business elites -- have also been provided with some access to the state, mainly via patrimonial, informal, mutually beneficial links with Suharto and other subordinate power-holders and/or officials, armed and unarmed, in the state's bureaucracy. In Thailand, the military's endeavors to reorganize political power in an author-itarian direction were, I have found, constrained by the institutions of the constitution-al monarchy, which the Promoters and Pibul, the first military strongman, accepted because the monarchy was (and is) the font of legitimacy, and is held to be by the majority of Thais as a mystic embodiment of Thai nationhood. There are, therefore, found in Thailand, three types of regimes: one, a less authoritarian military regime (which I term, the "Pibul system"); two, a more authoritarian military regime (the "Sarit system"); and three, the non-military, "Thai-style democracy" regimes that have existed or operated between coups. The Thai military, unlike its counterparts in Burma and Indonesia, has not been able effectively to deny civilian elites and social forces access to the state, or to effectively restrict the operation of intermediary institutions and associations for long periods. However, Sarit did succeed in establishing a military-authoritarian regime for a time. This he accomplished by associating his personal authoritarian rule with the populist-paternalistic kingship style of the Sukothai period, and by elevating the status of the then young King and Queen, and exploiting their youthful glamor and the history, pomp, and legitimacy associated with the monarchy (which had been downplayed after 1932). However, by the end of the Thanom-Praphart regime in the early 1970s, the King's political stature had grown, and he had accumulated de facto power by "out-lasting" military strongmen, governments, and constitutions. The monarchy -- an institution which, although of the state, was also above the state -- became accordingly more autonomous . It became quite impossible for the military, or military-backed rulers, to manipulate, as in the past, the monarchy or the King. Rather, it was the monarchy which became a pivotal force in Thai politics. Military Strongmen as Rulers, and the Military and Authoritarian Regimes With reference to the question of what kind of military authoritarian pattern emerges after the military captures the state, I have found that in military-authoritarian regimes, as observed by Heeger, the armed forces as a whole do not rule. It is the military strongman-ruler who exercises significant power, while the military plays a pivotal role as the subordinated political instrument and primary power base of the regime and the ruling strongman. The military is therefore dominant relative to societal forces, but its dominance vis-à-vis other state elements will vary -- being contingent on the vision, goals, and strategies of ruling strongmen to consolidate first, their personal control of the state, and second, the state's control over society. The relationship between the military chief-turned-ruler and the military, in terms of their respective autonomy, or dominance vis-à-vis the other, has been found to be a dynamic one. The military-authoritarian regimes investigated -- being basically systems where the military leader-rulers are personally dominant -- share many features in common with the system of personal rule, as theorized by Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, among others. As discussed in Chapter 2, this system is characterized by a political arena where rules and institutions do not effectively govern the conduct of rulers and other political actors. There obtains a situation where the system is structured by the politicians themselves, in particular by the person who wields the most power -- the personal ruler or, in "military" regimes, the strongman-ruler. In this respect, I have found that Burma's Ne Win, roughly fits the type of personal ruler classified by the authors as a tyrannical ruler. Thai strongmen-rulers, Pibul and Sarit, and Suharto in Indonesia, are, I have found, less tyrannical, and fall broadly into the categories of princely and autocratic rulers.609 The type of ruler, his mind-set, style, and vision, in turn, determines the contours and complexion of the system that emerges as a result of the ruler's endeavours. I have found that the relationship between the strongman-ruler and the military is contingent on the personal skills of the military ruler in playing intra-military politics -- in rewarding, manipulating, purging, and shuffling subordinates, thus diminishing their ability to mount any challenge to the ruler. It is also shaped, as I have maintained, by the strongman's agenda, his vision, goals, and style, and hence it varies from regime to regime. In this regard, in Burma, the relationship has, as found in Chapter 3, been mutually close, with the military remaining highly dominant, despite the "civilianization" of the ruler, Ne Win. In Indonesia (Chapter 4), the relationship has changed. Suharto has, as a ruler of the whole nation, counter-balanced the military's dominance with Golkar politicians, government "legislators" and "representatives", presidential aides, favored ministers, valued and useful techno-bureaucrats, business associates, and so on. In Thailand, typically, the military returns to the barracks after its chief captures the state, although some top brass are given cabinet portfolios, and some are rewarded with position in state, or military-owned, enterprises.610 Regarding the re-shaping of the state by strongman-rulers, in Burma, Ne Win drastically reorganized power in a highly authoritarian direction and manner -- and attempted to reorganize the economy as well. His power base was the Tatmadaw, and he relied on it alone to maintain his grip on power. The BSPP party-state structures set up in 1974 were dominated by the military which, in turn, enabled it to exclude all non-military elements, even those within the state's bureaucracy, from meaningful roles in the affairs of the state and politics. It has been found that the military penetrated almost completely the administrative, political, and economic ("socialist") bureaucracy of the state at all levels, and also controlled the legislative-representative sphere. In comparison, Suharto has, as mentioned, been a much more astute, sophisticated soldier-politician. He did not abolish the constitutional framework of the "old order", but reorganized power by manipulating its provisions. Primarily reliant on the military, Suharto was careful to entrench the military in politics through "constitutional" and "institutional" channels, interpreting and using the provisions of the 1945 Constitution. The vehicle he chose was Golkar, the government's large, civilian- and military-based, bureaucratically-organized party. Golkar enabled Suharto and the military to manipulate the political arena and control the legislative sphere, ensuring a quite high degree of dominance for ABRI, relative to other constitutive elements of the state and also to other social-political groups and segments. Golkar's dominating presence in the political arena and the legislature, coupled with the "floating mass" concept that disallowed politicking in the rural areas, has resulted in the depoliticization of a large part of society. I have found that Golkar is not a mass party, but rather an election vehicle for the government. The examination of the New Order state shows that Suharto has made effect-ive use of Golkar. Its electoral "successes" have given the New Order regime a semblance of legitimacy and a "civilian", more inclusive, and "democratic" mantle. Over time, it has also established Suharto's stature as a somewhat inclusive, broad-based, "father of the nation" type of ruler, and has ensured his many terms as Presid-ent.611 In recent years, as the regime "matured" and Suharto's position solidified, Golkar officials, along with favored ministers, bureaucrats, and technocrats have been used to counter-balance the military's dominance. This development underlines the shift in the hitherto very close relationship between Suharto and his military power base. I have found that ABRI's dominance in the bureaucratic sphere, compared to the early years of the regime, has been somewhat diluted. However, it still maintains a territorial, quasi-administrative framework, and in this aspect, the military is still more or less involved, especially, at the local level in administrative affairs. Military personnel also control, or are present in, the many state agencies, especially those dealing with security and commerce.612 In Thailand, the inquiry in Chapter 5 shows that parliamentary politics and institutions, along with the constitutional monarchy, co-existed with authoritarian rule. This contradiction between authoritarianism and the parliamentary form and practices was resolved for a time by Sarit who, like Ne Win, abolished parliament and related processes in 1958. His co-successors, Thanom and Praphart, carried on with the "Sarit system" until it was challenged and toppled (in 1973) by new forces that emerged as a result of deep socio-economic changes, in a environment of regional uncertainty and tension. With reference to the relationship between the strongman-ruler and the mil-itary, the inquiry shows, that successful strongmen-rulers -- Ne Win, Suharto, Pibul, Sarit (and co-successors) -- dominated the military, and ensured its subordinant status by a system of purges, surveillance, transfers, promotions, appointments to high or lucrative positions, ample budgets, funds for projects, and opportunities to make money or engage in business and commerce. Importantly, they juggled and shuffled military positions, and manipulated and exploited personal rivalries and interpersonal tensions, even among and between close aides and loyalists. However, soldiers in Thailand have, as mentioned in Chapter 5, been more professional and less involved in everyday political or administrative roles than those in Burma and Indonesia. In the Thai case, the frequency of coups and coup attempts seems to contradict the subordinant status of the military to its chief-and-ruler. However, I have found that the soldiers have been, for the most part, loyal to ruling strongmen. There have, nonetheless, been occasions when the military has decided not to defend unpopular ruling strongmen being challenged by other forces, especially those who have lost royal support, such as Thanom and Praphart (and their designated successor, Narong). Of the Thai strongmen, only Prem has been actually challenged by segments of the military: the attempted Young Turks coups in 1981 and 1985. This was because Prem was a democratically-oriented strongman who opposed military intervention and who was engaged in restoring parliamentary politics.613 State Autonomy, Military-Authoritarianism, Differing State-Society Configurations Concerning the differences between military-authoritarian regimes and within regimes over time, I have found that the variations stem largely from the differing patterns of autonomy relations. They differ in terms of the extent to which the state dominates and is autonomous from society, and/or is unresponsive to society. They also vary in the pattern of autonomy relations between, in particular, the strongman-ruler and the military, and the military and other non-military elements of the state. The differing patterns shape not only variances between regimes, but also within regimes over time. Finally, owing to the different patterns of autonomy relations established, long-term regime outcomes also vary. The subject of state autonomy lies at the heart of state-society relations, in particular, relationships between and among elements, classes, groups, and so on, that co-exist and interact politically within a "nation-state". It is about who dominates, and to what degree; how dominance is imposed; and what structures regulate, constrain, or facilitate dominance. Likewise, it also concerns the questions of who exercises greater or lesser degrees of relative autonomy, how autonomy is obtained, and what the structures are that limit or reinforce autonomy of various actors, groups, institutions, and so forth. Further, it is, as Theda Skocpol implies, linked also to resp-onsiveness -- the responsiveness of the state to societal demands, and vice-versa. Skocpol, Finer, and Eric Nordlinger argue that state autonomy (or obversely, society's autonomy from, or relative to the state) is contingent on two factors. These are, first, factors internal to the state (i.e., the will of state actors or elites to assert autonomy and the resources available to them in this regard), and second, the avail-ability and autonomy of intermediary institutions and channels to societal forces. The second factor is in turn dependent, as Skocpol maintains, on how the state is configured organizationally. In military-authoritarian states and regimes, where power is concentrated in the hands of the strongman-ruler and the military, and where intermediary channels are subdued or monopolized by state elements (in particular, by the military), the state will be more or less, and in varying degrees, rather highly autonomous. The military-authoritarian state is one that is, in Nordlinger's words, non-malleable by, and highly insulated from society. The country studies (Chapters 3-5) show that the pattern of authoritarian domination and autonomy relations established in each case is largely contingent on the political sophistication of the ruling strongman: particularly, his appreciation of the complexity of politics and the recognition of the need to win wider support, beyond his primary military power base. As found, in Thailand and Indonesia, ruling strongmen like Pibul, Sarit, and Suharto possessed those qualities. They were careful not to exclude or alienate the civilian bureaucracy and selected elite groups. In both, even though strongmen-rulers and soldiers were highly autonomous vis-à-vis society as a whole, they -- more or less and to varying degrees (more in Thailand than in Indonesia) -- included non-military segments in the political process, as discussed. In some cases, owing to considerations of legitimacy, ruling strongmen have clearly been constrained by their respect for, and the utility of certain constitutional forms, and have worked within such structures. In Thailand, most strongmen-rulers, other than Sarit, have felt the need to promulgate a constitution calling for a return to a parliamentary system of government, under a constitutional monarchy, and with a civilian bureaucracy intact. While the actual democratic elements were often more fictional than real, they did prevent these rulers from excluding non-military forces from access to politics and the state. In Indonesia, it was the 1945 Constitution -- which called for functional group representation and the participation of societal forces -- towards which Suharto felt obliged to conform. The above factors -- the political sophistication of ruling strongmen and the constraints on him -- resulted in the construction by military rulers of quite convinc-ing, stable institutions that bequeathed an aura of legitimacy and constitutionalism to the military-based regimes. This enabled them to win over important non-military elite elements, both within the state sphere and in society. Thus they accomplished several important goals: one, they created an elite consensus (and wider public support); two, they retained the military as their political instrument and pivotal power base, and three, they counter-balanced its dominance at the same time. There are however ruling strongmen who are of rudimentary persuasion and who are not constrained by considerations of legitimacy or pre-existing constitutional forms. As the investigation of military intervention and rule in Burma shows, Ne Win set up a quite simple military dictatorship. His BSPP state was characterized by a pattern of autonomy relations where the state vis-à-vis society was highly autonomous, highly insulated, and non-malleable. The pattern was the opposite with respect to the autonomy of the state vis-à-vis the ruler, Ne Win, and the military: the state was not very autonomous nor insulated, and was quite highly malleable. Ne Win's BSPP regime was one where the military was, next to the ruler, highly dominant, and was moreover allowed to exercise more or less arbitrary power. As shown, having excluded, and alienated, all social forces, and even civilian state elements, and lacking in political sophistication, Ne Win was reduced to relying solely on the military and coercion (or state violence) to stay in power -- which he success-fully did, for a quarter of a century. However, like the "Sarit System" in the time of Thanom and Praphart, Ne Win's military-dominant regime was, as found, incapable of responding constructively or positively to problems, or to challenges that emerged over time. The reliance on repression, combined with its inability to win legitimacy through performance, result-ed in the quite sudden collapse of the regime when confronted with a country-wide, "people's power" uprising in 1988. However, brute military force again won the day, and SLORC -- the current regime -- is, like Ne Win's, a straight-forward military regime. But with Ne Win declining physically, the junta's (and the country's) future is uncertain.614 The future also seems more and more uncertain in Indonesia. As discussed, although Suharto has successfully established a "constitutional", somewhat "institut-ionalized", quite stable, and durable military-authoritarian order, the question of succession poses a potentially serious problem. This is all the more so with Suharto getting on in years and about to begin to serve what will most likely be his last term as President (1998-2003). As the study has shown, the succession question is becoming increasingly worrisome because the regime's stability and effectiveness are dependent on Suharto's manipulative skills and political savvy, and his ability to maintain a power equilibrium, which stabilizes the system. Concerning the pattern of authoritarian rule in Thailand, the country study (Chapter 3) has shown that the pattern is, compared to Burma and Indonesia, quite dynamic. There has occurred a quite dramatic, fundamentally substantive, change in the pattern of autonomy relations: Thailand has since the 1970s been moving away from authoritarianism. The evidence indicates that the military has since then been constrained, even thwarted, in its attempt to continue to dominate politics and maintain an exclusionary, highly autonomous authoritarian order. An important factor in this respect is a situation where there exists a very important institution, one which is of the state, but which, at the same time, stands high above it -- the monarchy. It is "insulated" from, and cannot be captured or manipulated easily by the military and its ruling chief. Over time, as shown, as the monarch has gained greater stature and accumulat-ed a reservoir of de facto power, the King by the 1970s was able to assert his auton-omy and to use his stature in ways not always to the military's liking. For instance in 1981 the Young Turks captured Bangkok -- the "seat" of the state and the center of political power -- but they were not able to hold on to the prize. The insulation and the "independence" of the monarchy from the state and the military, and the King's assertion of this autonomy -- in the show of royal support for Prem -- left the military with no choice but to surrender the "prize" they held in their hands.615 The substantive change in the nature of political power and its organization toward a more open, democratic direction, initiated by Prem -- on behalf of, and with the support of the King -- illuminates what may be a phenomenon of some theoretical import. Despite the 1991 military coup, Suchinda failed, due to widespread demonstration against him and ensuing violence in 1992, to keep power after having himself named Prime Minister following an election . Also, the King's role was decisive in getting Suchinda to step down. This strongly suggests that political power in Thailand can no longer easily be the personal prerogative of the military leader-unifier or the military. Political power has shifted to the monarchy and to civilian politicians, particularly, a new, powerful social group, the economic elites, who now dominate the political arena and intermediary institutions. Power has also devolved, to a lesser extent into the hands of rural and urban NGOs organized and led by socially-conscious members of the "middle class" (who are generally opposed to the new economic power elites).616 This trend is indeed a discouraging one for political soldiers and aspiring strongmen in Thailand. The question of whether political power in Burma and Indonesia will undergo a similar change as their economies develop, become more complex, more closely integrated with the transnational regime of trade and investment, and a large "middle class" emerges, is beyond the scope of this thesis.617 What can be safely said is that the process of "democratization" in Thailand is largely the result of factors peculiar to Thailand. These include the centrality of the monarchy; its situation "above" the state and its "insulation" and autonomy from the military; the democratic orientation of an enlightened King; the availibility to the monarch of a loyal royalist, democratically inclined, de facto military strongman, Prem. Much of Thailand's future depends on the transition to, and consolidation of, democracy while the present King is on the throne. Variations in Military Authoritarian Regimes: Burma, Thailand, and Indonesia The military-authoritarian states in Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand are not identical. They vary, as this thesis shows, in the organizational configuration of the state and correspondingly, in the degree or extent of authoritarianism they exhibit, and in their domination of, and autonomy from, society. They are also different in the degree to which the military is dominant, and they yield different autonomy patterns in regard to the relationships between the military strongman-ruler and the military, the military and other elements and actors within the state, and between elements within the state and social forces in society. I have argued that the differences can be "illustrated" by placing military regimes along spectrums that "measure" certain dimensions that are common to such regimes, but vary from regime to regime. As mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2, the dimensions to be compared are, one, the extent to which the military penetrates the bureaucracy; two, the existence and auton-omy of elected legislative bodies and political parties; and three, the degree to which the state responds to societal demands. Below, these spectrums illustrate some salient differences and variations found over time in the military-authoritarian regimes in Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand: SPECTRUM 1 The Extent of Military Penetration of the Civil Bureaucracy. (x.1) = Extensive Military Penetration of the Civil Bureaucracy (x.2) = No Military Penetration of the Civil Bureaucracy |