My research focuses on questions related to the intersection of state- and nation-building, authoritarianism, religion, and political violence. I explore these questions primarily in Southeast Asia, where I have extensive area knowledge and fieldwork experience. In my research, I use a combination of fieldwork, comparative historical analysis, structured interviews, quasi-experimental methods, and automated text analysis.
Dissertation
My dissertation and subsequent book project “Remobilizing Resentment: Intrareligious Elite Polarization and the Escalation of Violence against Religious Minorities During Myanmar’s Political Liberalization” challenges the assumption in existing literature that political elites’ provocations against minorities during regime change inevitably lead to large-scale anti-minority violence. My dissertation advances the argument that escalation is conditional; intragroup polarization among majority elites along the traditional-secular/rationalist cleavage is one factor that increases the risk of escalation against minority outgroups. I focus specifically on religious leaders and large-scale violence against religious minorities through the case of anti-Muslim violence during Myanmar’s political liberalization. I support my argument with data from seven months of fieldwork in Myanmar, historical analysis, structured interviews, and a subnational dataset on religious leaders participation in an anti-Muslim movement.
Current Research
My other current research projects center around the role of information communication technologies (ICT) in contentious politics. Under what conditions are new ICTs tools of political liberation? I have a co-authored paper in the Asian Journal of Comparative Politics that uses Myanmar language public Facebook posts after the 2021 military coup to demonstrate how prior digital activism experience enhanced activists’ ability to harness the internet for resistance. A paper in progress uses a differences-in-differences design to disentangle the relative effect of internet cuts on anti-regime protests and military repression after the 2021 Myanmar military coup. In another working paper, I leverage two unique datasets of public election-related Facebook posts during Myanmar’s 2020 election to classify election fraud disinformation and to analyze its spread and virality.
Future Research
If existing research finds that military rule is the most likely regime type to democratize, why do some military regimes cling to power at all costs? In a future book project, I will explain this puzzling variation in the durability of military rule using a comparative historical analysis of three military regimes with divergent outcomes: Myanmar, Indonesia, and Thailand. I developed the concept of military enmeshment and will explain how greater military enmeshment reduces the likelihood of democratization in military regimes.
Publications
Ryan, Megan, Tran, Mai Van. 2022. “Democratic Backsliding Disrupted: The Role of Digitalized Resistance.” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics. Ryan, Megan, Tran, Mai Van, and Ye Htut, Swan. “Strange Bedfellows or Trusted Comrades? Digital Solidarity-building among Myanmar’s Revolutionaries.” Journal of Contemporary Asia, Revise and resubmit.
Working papers
"The Strength to Cooperate: Monitoring Capacity and Militia Violence in Indonesia." working paper. “Autocrat’s Terrain? a Difference in Difference Design to Estimate the Ambivalent Effects of Internet Cuts on Regime-Dissident Contention,” with Alexander Fertig. Working paper. “The limits of Disinformation: Source Credibility and Election Fraud Disinformation During Myanmar’s 2020 Election” Working paper. “Experimental Democrats: Military Enmeshment and Democratization in Military Regimes” Working paper.
Other writing
Ryan, Megan and Darin Self. 2021 “Myanmar’s Military Distrusts the Country’s Ruling Party. That’s Why it Staged a Coup and Detained Leaders and Activists.” The Washington Post, February 2.