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Thinkers and political figures

Photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi in traditional dress.

Portrait: Photograph, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Aung San Suu Kyi

Country
Myanmar
Era
b. 1945
Tradition
Liberal democracy

Nobel laureate who spent fifteen years under house arrest opposing military rule, won a landslide when finally allowed to contest, then defended the army against genocide charges at The Hague before it deposed her anyway.

01

Documented positions

Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.

  • Led the National League for Democracy in non-violent opposition to military rule from 1988
  • Argued that democracy and human rights are universal rather than culturally Western, against the "Asian values" argument
  • Won the 2015 and 2020 elections decisively and governed as State Counsellor, the presidency being barred to her
  • Pursued constitutional amendment to reduce the military’s guaranteed quarter of parliamentary seats, without success
  • Defended Myanmar against genocide charges at the International Court of Justice over the expulsion of the Rohingya
  • Declined to describe the Rohingya as a distinct ethnic group entitled to citizenship
  • Was deposed and imprisoned by the military in the February 2021 coup
02

Where it sits on each dimension

Personal liberty

60

Evidence: Documented

Nation and the world

62

Evidence: Documented

Power and its limits

70

Evidence: Well documented

Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Wealth and inequality, The state in the economy, Tradition and change, Religion and the state, Environment and growth, Crime and punishment

Sources

  • Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear · 1991
  • International Court of Justice, Application of the Genocide Convention (The Gambia v. Myanmar): Public sitting · 2019

Last verified: