inauguration of parliamentary democracy helped to absorb forces and energies
mobilized in World War II and the independence struggle, with demobilization
achieved largely through incorporation into the rapidly expanding agencies of
the two states. In both, the reconstitution of state authority along national lines
was enabled by expansion of the state’s role in the economy to promote economic nationalism and to meet the hopes for social redistribution raised by
popular participation in the independence struggle. However, state expansion,
absorptiveness, and inclusiveness was soon tempered by a trend towards the
centralization and insulation of state power. This tendency was already
evident in the first years of independence in the undermining of federal state
structures that outgoing colonial governments had imposed on Burmese and
Indonesian nationalist leaders.