Paper short abstract

How does the seeming “crisis” in the international liberal order shape historic movements to resist military rule? This project examines global politics from the standpoint of Myanmar’s Spring Revolution, foregrounding the role of brokers who mediate liberalism’s internal contradictions.

Paper long abstract

This paper introduces Governing the Revolution, a four-year project that explores the “crisis” of the liberal international order from the standpoint of the post-2021 movement against military rule in Myanmar, known as the Spring Revolution. It develops a conjunctural approach to this topic, asking: (1) How do shifts in the international order reverberate across center-periphery relations at multiple scales? (2) How do revolutionary actors in Myanmar, who have long had an ambivalent relationship with internationalism, navigate these shifts in relation to the uneven and localized geographies of the ongoing conflict?

Based on early-stage interviews and participant observation, this paper foregrounds the purchase of approaching these questions through brokers who respond to and mediate the contradictions of the liberal international order – as well as their localized manifestations – in day-to-day life. Brokerage is central to a critical, multi-sited ethnographic approach to crises and contradictions.