PhD Candidate Aye Lei Tun publishes on the Resilience of Post-Coup Myanmar’s CSO Activism!

Aye Lei Tun is a PhD candidate who is deeply immersed in the study of civil society organizations in Myanmar and Thailand. She has conducted extensive fieldwork as part of research for her ongoing dissertation on resilience of civil society organizations’ (CSO) in authoritarian regimes. She recently published a critical perspective examining how international funding shapes pro-democracy CSOs’ activism in Myanmar’s post-coup era after 2021. She argues that Myanmar’s CSOs have demonstrated resilience but are also under pressure from the complicated politics of legal registration, a shift in international donor priorities, donor-driven approaches that do not necessarily reflect realities on the ground, and insufficient and short-term funding that leads to a spiral of weakening efficacy and donor interest.

For more, check out the article here: https://www.stimson.org/2025/how-international-funding-shapes-myanmar-pro-democracy-csos-activism-in-the-post-coup-era/