Abstract: Political authority is the prerequisite for governments to maintain social order and carry out effective social governance. Based on data from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey covering Myanmar, Thailand, and South Korea, this article investigates how political participation, from “military government” to “democratic government,” affects the construction of political authority. The study finds that highly institutionalized political participation has a positive effect on the generation of democratic political authority. For “democratized governments,” the impact of non-institutionalized political participation and online political participation on political authority varies depending on the domestic environment, while for “mature democracies,” non-institutionalized political participation has a negative effect on the authority of military rule. Therefore, political participation is an important factor affecting political authority, and different dimensions of political participation have significant differences in their impact on political authority. When building political authority, it is important to pay attention to the impact of different political participation modules on the construction of political authority and to build a modern government with high political authority, so as to better carry out national governance.

Key words: political participation, political authority, military government, democratic political authority, military ruling authority