On 18 May 2026, Amara Thiha successfully defended his doctoral thesis “The Ritual State: The Cultural Infrastructure of Political Authority in Myanmar” at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.
Amara’s work introduces the concept of the “ritual state,” arguing that political legitimacy is not only rooted in institutions, but also produced through ritual practices, cosmological beliefs, and the symbolic organization of space. His thesis contributes an original perspective to the study of political authority and authoritarian governance.
Drawing on qualitative data collection, interpretive research and fieldwork in Myanmar, the study shows how successive regimes have used practices such as merit-making and pagoda construction to claim authority. The thesis also highlights how these same practices have been adapted by opposition movements, especially following the 2021 coup, contributing to new forms of decentraliszd resistance.
The study offers a broadly applicable framework for understanding how political authority is enacted and contested through cultural and ritual practices.
Submitted to the University of Coimbra’s Faculty of Economics within the PhD programme Democracy in the 21st Century, the thesis was supervised by Professors Teresa Almeida Cravo and Marte Nilsen and conducted at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) as part of the POPAGANDA project.
