Taking its cue from the literature on legislative oversight of military institutions, this paper explores the use of parliamentary questions in Myanmar’s post-junta national legislature to address security-related concerns and tentatively oversee the activities, behaviour and public expenditures of the country’s still all-powerful armed forces (Tatmadaw). Using the case of the Union legislature elected in 2015 and controlled by the National League for Democracy (NLD), the study looks at how elected representatives have attempted to undertake their function of oversight over Myanmar’s military through the regular use of starred and unstarred questions. It draws on a quantitative analysis of parliamentary records, and is supplemented with ethnographic research and interviews carried out in Naypyitaw with legislators and parliamentary staffers involved. The study unearths new empirical evidence to underscore how steps have been taken towards a form of (still hesitant and cursory) legislative scrutiny of the defence sector in post-junta Myanmar.
