Myanmar’s Emerging Governance Mosaic

INTRODUCTION

The February 2021 coup in Myanmar abruptly interrupted 21^st-century efforts at establishing an enduring, inclusive national state for the country’s many ethnic groups. However, from a historical perspective, this was merely the latest in a long line of broken political promises by the entrenched Bamar-dominated military elite. Put differently, an inclusive, democratic federal state has remained an unfinished project since before it achieved independence in 1948. Yet it is this same project that disparate armed groups resisting a military-dominant state are now seeking to revitalise. Scores of heterogeneous governance-building efforts are currently underway, across different scales and (often competing) ethno-nationalist commitments. These various initiatives, which we posit as an emerging governance mosaic, have largely been overlooked in assessments by many external observers. Therefore, this article provides a contextual overview of these initiatives aimed at achieving some form of democratic governance in Myanmar.

Long-term observers will be aware of Myanmar’s chequered history of efforts to create an inclusive nation-state. The 1947 Panglong process fundamentally lacked inclusive representation and thus failed to forge a national identity for Burma’s post-independence state. This compounded pre-existing dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the country, thus increasing divergence in visions for Burma/Myanmar’s political future. In the 1950s, the civilian government accorded privileged consideration to the Myanmar armed forces (referred to as the Tatmadaw) as the only institution capable of confronting armed conflicts contesting central-state control across various parts of the country. This laid the groundwork for the Myanmar military’s “guardian of the state” rhetoric. Long periods of authoritarian rule following military coups in 1962 and 1988 further entrenched the military’s dominant role in the country’s political and economic life, and successive military leaders sought to explicitly reinforce their power through Bamar-Buddhist nationalism. The military-drafted 2008 Constitution and the military-backed Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP) administration’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) process were structured to codify further and propagate this dominance.

The need to establish the foundation for a more inclusive political system became more pronounced after what many perceived as a blatant power grab in 2021. Various political forums and processes, such as the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and the Federal Democracy Charter (FDC), have since 2021 attempted to revive the principles of inclusion adopted at Panglong in 1947 to challenge historically embedded power asymmetries and ensure meaningful political inclusion. Despite the ongoing challenge of building consensus among scores of heterogeneous groups, many of whom carry deep historical grievances, these negotiations are seen as necessary to confront the territorial realities of the post-coup landscape and the deepening socio-economic crises facing the country.

Despite a lack of progress at the federal level, various Myanmar stakeholders (both before and after 2021) have undertaken extensive efforts to initiate and implement inclusive and consultative governance systems at the state and regional levels. Parallel state-building processes have sought to embed self-determination, with various interim governing arrangements at various stages of completion existing within broader federal frameworks. Democratic self-governance has clearly taken root in Myanmar although it remains a work in progress. There are also ongoing attempts to draft articles of federal transition that consider grassroots input. However, these experiments in bottom-up federalism still lack broader domestic and international recognition and the concomitant resources to support ongoing efforts.

Our contextual overview of the emerging post-coup governance and administration initiatives below demonstrates why it deserves closer attention. Currently, initiatives are scattered across different regions and actors, making them invisible to political, scholarly, and policy observers and thus rarely examined together. We discuss the ongoing—and at times simultaneous—processes of nation- and state-building; the diversity of the movements seeking to realise a “federal democratic union”. We also discuss on-the-ground experiences, lessons, and challenges across various sub-national-level structures, as well as the complexities of parallel structures and competing representation interests in some areas and communities. Through this, we seek to uncover Myanmar’s emerging governance “mosaic” — a patchwork still largely hidden from current discussions but one that should inform future discourse and related policy responses.

MYANMAR’S EMERGING GOVERNANCE MOSAIC

During Myanmar’s so-called decade of transition (2011-2021), there was renewed interest in creating a permanent solution to the numerous civil conflicts which had waxed and waned since 1948. The main push came in the form of the multilateral NCA signed in 2015 by the quasi-civilian USDP government and eight armed groups (later joined by two more). Although only one of the three largest ethnic armed organisations (EAOs), namely the Karen National Union (KNU), had joined the NCA-brokered talks, the deal nevertheless marked the start of an extensive, internationally backed negotiation process. However, the February 2021 coup brought those efforts to a halt, and several EAOs formally suspended political dialogue later that month.

The coup ignited a massive social transformation. New platforms like the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) mobilised millions of civilians and contributed to the formation of a new National Unity Government (NUG). Created as a parallel government by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), the NUG comprises elected lawmakers from the 2020 elections. Meanwhile, in response to violent crackdowns that left hundreds dead, large swathes of Myanmar youth began joining existing EAOs or forming new armed guerrilla groups that later became known as People’s Defence Force (PDF) units. Collectively, these constituted a broad “society against the state” movement that was too diffuse for the military to counteract effectively. Furthermore, the movement showed a new political awareness emerging amongst Myanmar’s youth.

The NUG’s first step towards developing a coherent framework for a federal democratic state was the formation of the NUCC in March 2021. Central to its mandate was the FDC, a two-part document pairing a declaration of principles for a future federal democratic union with interim constitutional arrangements for the transitional period. A few weeks after its formation, the NUCC endorsed the FDC as a political roadmap and an interim constitution for a future federal union. While the NUG was designed as a formal government structure, the NUCC was a consultative body composed of the CRPH, EAOs, political parties, and civil society organisations.

In principle, the NUCC was meant to serve as a broad and inclusive body that would facilitate dialogue and consensus-building among all actors in Myanmar seeking to end the military dictatorship. Yet, even as it worked toward a supposedly singular vision of a federal democratic state, emerging governance practices on the ground assumed a more variegated form that has remained largely invisible to foreign observers. Meanwhile, critics pointed to the NUG’s dominance in the NUCC as a sign of a lack of inclusion, as the NUG is largely composed of lawmakers from the now-banned National League for Democracy (NLD). Dissatisfaction with this, as well as the increasing disconnect between NUG-led top-down efforts and on-the-ground realities, eventually led several key EAOs to suspend their NUCC membership in late 2025. In response, nine ethnic resistance organisations and federal councils began developing the so-called Articles of Federal Transitional Arrangement (AFTA) in September 2024 as a more bottom-up alternative to the NUG-led process. Meanwhile, in response to the faltering NUCC process, the NUG and its allies formed the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) in March 2026, discussed further below.

It is worth emphasising that all of these experimental governance structures are occurring amid active conflict. This puts enormous pressure on frontline administrators…

These top-down governance efforts occurred against the backdrop of autonomous ethnic regions expanding their territorial footprint. Many of the leading EAOs have long had parallel administrative bodies that provide basic services, including healthcare, education, and land registration. The KNU, for example, has been gradually building grassroots service provisions in Southeast Myanmar since its formation in 1947. Similarly, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) — created in 1961 — funds extensive healthcare and education institutions, including a tertiary teacher training college, from a mix of mineral extraction and tax revenues. Meanwhile, the largest non-state armed group in Myanmar, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), has since 1989 built a de facto independent incontiguous state in Northeast Myanmar’s border region with China. One of the newest and most influential armed groups, the Arakan Army (AA), has, since the 2021 coup, followed a somewhat different trajectory by absorbing extant local governance agencies previously under central state authority, including municipal General Administrative Departments (GADs) and hospitals — a strategy that has contributed to their rapid consolidation of territorial control in more than 90 per cent of Rakhine State.

In addition to those regional dynamics, scores of new grassroots-level initiatives have emerged since February 2021. Local PDFs, often supported by larger EAOs, have dislodged the Tatmadaw from large swathes of territory and created space for new grassroots governance initiatives. In some cases, these groups have received nominal support from the NUG which in 2024 reorganised territories under its nominal control by creating the township-level 3Ps (Pa Thone Lone): The People’s Administration Teams (Pa Ah Pha), and its two armed wings, the People’s Defence Organisations (Pa Ka Pha) and the People’s Security Forces (Pa La Pha) as structures of law enforcement. In other cases, such as in both Chin and Karenni States, smaller armed groups comprising both EAOs and PDFs have joined forces to create autochthonous governance initiatives. Similarly, the Karenni State Consultative Council (KSCC) in Kayah (also known as Karenni) State established a provisional government in 2023. This interim body was named the Karenni Interim Executive Council (IEC), and its aims include drafting a subnational constitution and holding regional elections. Similarly, Chin State, which has historically been marred by inter-ethnic divisions, formed the Interim Chin National Consultative Council (ICNCC) and Chin Joint Defence Committee (CJDC). Meanwhile, new governance initiatives have cropped up in Bamar-majority central regions such as Sagaing and Magwe, many of which have declared allegiance to the NUG. What all of these heterogeneous administrative bodies have in common is that they have had to build new institutions from scratch, in what can perhaps best be described as experimental state-building (or what some analysts have called “survival governance”). Overall, the emerging governance landscape in Myanmar is a mosaic of diverse and uneven frameworks rapidly evolving in tempore present.

CHALLENGES FACING MYANMAR’S FEDERALIST EXPERIMENTS

Thus, federalist opposition groups face significant challenges. Despite gradual improvements in coordination among armed opposition groups within the country, the lack of broad ethnic unity makes it challenging for stakeholders to engage with them constructively. Both older EAO-led administrations and newer PDF-controlled institutions are actively fighting to retain their territory while struggling to raise revenues. Furthermore, several critiques of the NUG emerged in 2024 and 2025, accusing them of being poorly managed and out of touch with practical realities. Analysts have also observed “festering mistrust” between larger EAOs and the NUG, which they view as “rooted in the Bamar-centric politics of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.” Finally, the military-orchestrated elections, held in phases from December 2025 to January 2026, seem to have provided some neighbouring states with a foil for cautious engagement with the regime, although the regional ASEAN bloc remains wary.

The NUG seems to have some introspective awareness of these challenges. The formation of the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) appears to be a recognition that the moribund NUCC process needed to be reinvigorated through a more horizontal structure. In one long-time observer’s view, the SCEF is “going in what many would perceive as the right direction in the sense that the NUG is realising it needs to compromise and stop insisting on authority.” However, after five years of failed initiatives, “it is hard [for many people] to get enthusiastic about yet another acronym.”

The presence of so many (loosely coordinated) opposition groups is perhaps the main reason many Myanmar watchers are quietly holding their breath to see whether the military’s recent stage-managed elections open up space for reform.

The presence of so many (loosely coordinated) opposition groups is perhaps the main reason many Myanmar watchers are quietly holding their breath to see whether the military’s recent stage-managed elections open up space for reform. This belies the potential transformative power of the country’s emerging mosaic of democratic governance. Furthermore, these anti-authoritarian experiments are not an historical anomaly, but “a political culture that has re-emerged at every major turning point since [Myanmar’s] independence.” What potentially distinguishes the current moment is the widespread opposition to the military regime extending into the ethnic Bamar heartlands of Sagaing, Magwe, Bago, and Mandalay, as well as the emergence of a microcosm of experimental grassroots governance.

It is worth emphasising that all of these experimental governance structures are occurring amid active conflict. This puts enormous pressure on frontline administrators; as noted by a group of researchers interviewed for this article, “these local actors are building systems out of whatever they have: volunteer labour, armed group stipends, and checkpoint taxation. They share the same structural constraints — territorial fragility, tension with the union over money and control, and aerial attacks. Building legitimacy without formal authority remains a challenge; to survive, this local governance depends on territorial control. This is survival governance.”

Nevertheless, these adverse conditions are forcing anti-Tatmadaw actors to experiment with new institutions that are more responsive to local communities’ immediate needs. In Sagaing, sporadic village-level education committees have taken over the practical functions of school governance in rural areas. These committees include CDM teachers but are not limited to former NGO staff and community elders (Yat Mi Yat Pha). They collectively decide where schools are going to be built, how teachers are paid, how children are fed, and how learning continues even as the junta’s aerial bombardment forces classrooms out of fixed infrastructures into forest clearings. They also fundraise through diaspora networks via Facebook and negotiate with township Pa Thone Lone administrators when resources are short or security is a concern. While it is important not to romanticise these efforts, they are nevertheless an important microcosm of the broader challenges and successes of Myanmar’s resistance forces in laying the foundations for state-building from below.

There are also ideological challenges. For one, there is no common alignment on what forms of political representation different (sub)groups desire, nor what that would look like in practice as part of a larger federal union. In a similar vein, these new grassroots efforts need to not just be content with long-standing semi-autonomous ethnic-based governance structures, but explore new pathways for collaboration that recognise the demands of ethnic minorities and sub-minorities under the umbrella of a new political federation. Meanwhile, there are acute capacity and resource gaps across the board, with many actors struggling to provide basic humanitarian aid and administrative services, especially in territories that have recently been taken over by resistance forces.

The massive territorial losses by the junta in late 2023 (locally known as Operation 1027) gave the world a glimpse of what regime collapse might look like in Myanmar. Despite recent gains by the Tatmadaw, facilitated by organisational reforms, new drone technology, and conscription-boosted troop numbers, they would likely be unable to withstand a coordinated effort by existing armed opposition groups. However, as one observer has pointed out, the issue is ultimately “a lot more complicated than simply saying that the NUG-led process is not inclusive enough; there are big questions over whether the EAOs want to join such a process to begin with. They may view it as a poisoned chalice that would compromise their own interests.”

Although an increasing number of resistance actors are becoming critically aware of this hesitation, it remains to be seen whether it is possible to create a forum for negotiating these political differences.

CONCLUSION

The combination of different experiments in self-determination, both new and old, has led to the gradual crystallisation of a new governance mosaic in Myanmar. Taken together, these experiments have the potential to slowly coalesce into an alternative federal structure. Ultimately, the litmus test for resistance/opposition groups is whether they can turn rhetoric into results and develop a genuinely inclusive political blueprint that is less authoritarian, less patriarchal, and less Bamar-dominated. In other words, what is needed is nothing less than a complete realignment of centre-periphery power relations. This may be a tall order, but recent evidence indicates that it is possible — especially if the right stakeholders, both inside and outside the country, can work together.

Myanmar’s political and ethnic stakeholders seem aware that a federal democratic state is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The shared vision of a bottom-up federalism currently being discussed should not confer more power for the already powerful, nor enable majoritarian attitudes towards minority communities.

Further attention is also necessary on competing claims to political representation. This is a contested issue in many parts of Myanmar, and particularly distinct in Chin State and parts of Sagaing/Central Myanmar. In these regions, different communities interpret and engage with federal concepts in distinct ways, shaped by their unique histories, accumulated grievances, and evolving relationships with various institutional actors. Importantly, these grassroots governance experiments are continuously evolving despite their significant capacity and resource constraints.

This article has offered a preliminary assessment of ongoing efforts and challenges faced by various Myanmar stakeholders in advancing their federal vision since 2021. The broad overview presented here shows a recognisable mosaic emerging from many seemingly discrete efforts across Myanmar. Whether this mosaic, when complete, will demonstrate a less discordant pattern that truly represents the voices of heterogeneous communities remains to be seen, but it has the potential to be more than the sum of its parts. As Myanmar’s governance landscape continues to evolve, effective regional engagement will require not only responding to the country’s political crisis but also understanding and engaging with the diverse actors shaping governance realities on the ground.

Similar to the adage about Rome’s construction, Myanmar’s emerging governance mosaic needs time, attention, and resources to develop. However, global and domestic distractions may create a paucity in all three, and a preference for short-term solutions that serve political expediency rather than long-term sustainability. The recent flurry of attempts to (re)engage Naypyidaw may well be viewed in this light, as the current executive in Myanmar is asserting the centre’s primacy over state/region-level dynamics. Regardless of what happens with and in the centre, Myanmar’s emerging governance mosaic represents some measure of on-the-ground accountability, which is important for considerations related to humanitarian access and the last-mile implementation or delivery of services. Thus, external interlocutors seeking to build trust and understand the various aspirations and realities in Myanmar will need to consider adding a subnational-level dimension to current approaches. 

Myanmar Studies Programme Coordinator’s Note: This overview paper is the first in a three-part series discussing aspects and challenges of emerging governance dynamics in Myanmar at state/region level. The papers are part of, and complement, the ISEAS Myanmar Studies Programme’s other written outputs on state/region-level dynamics in Myanmar post-2021.

---

This is an adapted version of ISEAS Perspective 2026/68 published on 25 September 2026. The paper and its references can be accessed at this link.