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Cambodia in 2018: A Year of Setbacks and Successes
- from CAMBODIA
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- By Sorpong Peou, Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University and a member of the Yeates School of Graduate Studies.
- Edited by Daljit Singh, Malcolm Cook
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 2019
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 07 September 2019
- Print publication:
- 10 April 2019, pp 105-120
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Summary
Cambodia in 2018 was marked by a number of major setbacks in some areas and successes in others. On the political front, the senate and parliamentary elections resulted in the Cambodian People's Party's monopolization of power within the bicameral legislature. Prime Minister Hun Sen continued to tighten his grip on power by taking steps to control state institutions, most notably the armed forces, the judiciary, and the party system. Human rights in the country continued to face an uphill battle, although the CPP government took a few small positive steps towards the end of the year by reversing its tight restrictions on the opposition and political rights. All these negative developments occurred despite positive signs of socio-economic development and international pressure from some major countries on which Cambodia has long depended for economic growth. Developed countries like the United States and those in Europe threatened to impose sanctions on Cambodia because of the election results, but the Hun Sen government did little to address their concerns about the political and human rights situation.
The State and Political Society
The multiparty system that was introduced in Cambodia in 1993 through the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements and the intervention of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia is now dictated by the CPP, which allows weak and fragile opposition parties to exist without any prospects of them gaining enough seats to form a new government.
The year 2018 was noteworthy in the sense that two major elections for the bicameral legislature — the Senate and the National Assembly — led to the CPP's total dominance, and further marked a move away from a hegemonic-party system to the beginning of a one-party state. The election for the Senate was held on 25 February, after having been postponed from 14 January 2018, and the results left the CPP with all 58 elected seats, taking 12 seats away from the opposition. The CPP also captured all 125 seats in the National Assembly, having collected 4,889,113 votes, leaving the other nineteen political parties without a single seat. Banned in November 2017 by the Supreme Court from competing in the two elections, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which won 55 out of 123 seats in the 2013 elections, was not even among the nineteen parties that competed with the CPP.
Hun Sen's Pre-emptive Coup: Causes and Consequences (1998)
- from CAMBODIA
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- By Sorpong Peou
- Edited by Daljit Singh, Malcolm Cook
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- Book:
- Turning Points and Transitions
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 29 May 2019
- Print publication:
- 21 November 2018, pp 244-259
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Summary
On 5–6 July 1997, troops loyal to Second Prime Minister Hun Sen (of the Cambodian People's Party, or CPP) and those of First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh (leader of the royalist party known as FUNCINPEC, or the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Co-operative Cambodia) engaged in a fierce street battle in Phnom Penh. The fighting stunned the Cambodian people and the world. Within two days, the CPP force defeated its enemy, and then pushed the remnants against the northern Thai- Cambodian border into a tiny strategic area called O Smach. At year's end, Hun Sen still held high the trophy of victory.
This article seeks to explore the events of July 1997. At issue is whether or not what took place constitutes a coup; and, if it is a coup, what kind? I argue that the overthrow of Ranariddh was a coup, not a social revolution or putsch. Unlike coups in many other countries, however, it was not caused by factors such as ethnic or ideological antagonisms, sociopolitical turmoil, or military dominance. I take a structural approach, arguing that Hun Sen's actions must be explained in terms of his struggle for hegemonic preservation, as his party and adversaries braced themselves for the next election scheduled for 1998. (In this study, the term “hegemon” means “leader”, and struggle for hegemony simply means struggle for political leadership.) Although the Second Prime Minister has now achieved political dominance, preventing bipolarity from emerging, he has also recreated Cambodia's old power structure, prone to coups, violence, and war.
Prelude to a Pre-Emptive Coup
In the debate over whether Hun Sen's actions were or were not a coup, those who supported or sympathized with the Second Prime Minister viewed them as preventing Prince Ranariddh from staging a coup against the government. Those who put the blame on Hun Sen considered his actions a coup. It may be worth describing politico-military developments leading to the July events and then examining the two opposing perspectives more closely.
In May 1993, elections were organized by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), which intervened in the country following the Paris Agreement in October 1991.
9 - Party and Party System Institutionalization in Cambodia
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- By Sorpong Peou, Ryerson University (Toronto)
- Edited by Allen Hicken, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Erik Martinez Kuhonta, McGill University, Montréal
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- Book:
- Party System Institutionalization in Asia
- Published online:
- 18 December 2014
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- 29 December 2014, pp 212-235
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Summary
This chapter analyses party and party system institutionalization in Cambodia. The country provides an excellent case study that sheds some new light on the theoretical observations made in this volume. Since the country made a historic triple transition in the early 1990s (from war to peace, from command to market economics, and from political authoritarianism to electoral democracy) when four Cambodian armed factions and 18 other foreign states formally signed the Paris Peace Agreements on October 23, 1991, the country’s multiparty system and political parties have had more than 20 years to become institutionalized.
The concept of party system and party institutionalization is subject to debate, but this chapter works within the analytical framework developed in this volume. Party and party system institutionalization, as the key dependent variable, is a process not necessarily associated with democratization based on formal or impersonal rules, norms, and decision-making procedures. Institutionalization is defined more or less as a process of stabilization or regularization: party systems become more and more stable over time, and electoral competition becomes less and less volatile because of their growing political legitimacy as measured in terms of growing public support and deepening social roots. Moreover, political parties become less factionalized or more and more organizationally cohesive.
8 - Security community-building in the Asia-Pacific
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- By Sorpong Peou
- Edited by William T. Tow, Australian National University, Canberra
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- Book:
- Security Politics in the Asia-Pacific
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 15 October 2009, pp 144-166
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The ‘pluralistic security community’ concept as it applies in the Asia-Pacific region is based on the assumption that individual states can relate to one another more positively as their values and interests converge. In particular, the notion of a ‘pluralistic’ security community recently developed by Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (1998: 30) of ‘a transnational region comprised of sovereign states whose people maintain dependable expectations of peaceful change’ is examined. Concrete instances of viable regional security communities now exist around the world and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is arguably one such case (Acharya 2001). Political realists still question whether states will ever overcome historical or structural rivalries to eventually form a multilateral security community on a regional scale. Reconciling those interests that usually shape state-centric rivalries with norms and values that often serve as preconditions for underwriting the security community-building process is the key to overcoming those tensions that most often impede security communities from evolving.
History suggests that economic interests may help pacify relations among states. This material condition alone, however, remains insufficient for the building and maintenance of security communities (Bearce 2003; Nye 1988). Can states build security communities only when they share economic interests, as commercial pacifists and institutional functionalists (or regional integrationists) lead us to believe (Glosny 2006; Green and Self 1996; Rohwer 1995; Rosecrance 1986, 1999; Teo Chu Cheow 2004; Tsunekawa 2005)? Some neo-classical realists even argue that weak states tend to ‘bandwagon’ with hegemons ‘for profit’ (Schweller 1994).
2 - CAMBODIA
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- By Sorpong Peou, Sophia University, Tokyo
- Edited by John Funston
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- Book:
- Government and Politics in Southeast Asia
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 23 October 2001, pp 36-73
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INTRODUCTION
Cambodia is one of the oldest states in Southeast Asia, but longevity has not provided a shield against political turmoil. The Khmer Rouge government gained international notoriety in the 1970s, turning the whole country into killing fields, and subsequent governments have found it hard to escape this legacy.
From the ninth to the thirteenth centuries Cambodia's Angkor dynasty ruled over much of the Southeast Asia mainland. It left historical remains that are among the wonders of the world, and evidence of a highly developed civilization. From the fourteenth century Cambodia began to contract, squeezed by Thailand on one side and Vietnam on the other. France made it a protectorate in 1863, and the state assumed its present form after Battambang and Siem Riep were wrested from Thailand in 1904 and 1907. Apart from a brief Japanese interlude during World War II, it remained a French colony until independence in 1953.
Cambodia shares long and often contested borders with Laos (in the north), Thailand (in the west), and Vietnam (in the east). It remains a predominantly agrarian society, with 75 to 80 per cent of the population earning their living from agriculture. Forests are among the country's most important natural resources, but have been depleted rapidly (often illegally) since the mid-1990s. Despite being resource-rich, Cambodia remains poor. This is largely the legacy of the civil war in the first half of the 1970s and the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. In the early 1980s, a socialist government started to rebuild the economy from scratch. Faced with economic stagnation, the government moved to adopt a policy of liberalization late in the decade.
Cambodia - Cambodian Culture since 1975: Homeland and Exile. Edited by May M. Ebihara, Carol A. Mortland and Judy Ledgerwood. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994. Pp. xvi, 194. References, Index.
- Sorpong Peou
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- Journal:
- Journal of Southeast Asian Studies / Volume 29 / Issue 2 / September 1998
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 August 2009, pp. 407-408
- Print publication:
- September 1998
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Hun Sen's Pre-Emptive Coup: Causes and Consequences
- from CAMBODIA
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- By Sorpong Peou, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
-
- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 1998
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 04 August 1998, pp 86-102
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Summary
On 5–6 July 1997, troops loyal to Second Prime Minister Hun Sen (of the Cambodian People's Party, or CPP) and those of First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh (leader of the royalist party known as FUNCINPEC, or the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Co-operative Cambodia) engaged in a fierce street battle in Phnom Penh. The fighting stunned the Cambodian people and the world. Within two days, the CPP force defeated its enemy, and then pushed the remnants against the northern Thai-Cambodian border into a tiny strategic area called O Smach. At year's end, Hun Sen still held high the trophy of victory.
This article seeks to explore the events of July 1997. At issue is whether or not what took place constitutes a coup; and, if it is a coup, what kind? I argue that the overthrow of Ranariddh was a coup, not a social revolution or putsch. Unlike coups in many other countries, however, it was not caused by factors such as ethnic or ideological antagonisms, socio-political turmoil, or military dominance. I take a structural approach, arguing that Hun Sen's actions must be explained in terms of his struggle for hegemonic preservation, as his party and adversaries braced themselves for the next election scheduled for 1998. (In this study, the term “hegemon” means “leader”, and struggle for hegemony simply means struggle for political leadership.) Although the Second Prime Minister has now achieved political dominance, preventing bipolarity from emerging, he has also recreated Cambodia's old power structure, prone to coups, violence, and war.
Prelude to a Pre-Emptive Coup
In the debate over whether Hun Sen's actions were or were not a coup, those who supported or sympathized with the Second Prime Minister viewed them as preventing Prince Ranariddh from staging a coup against the government. Those who put the blame on Hun Sen considered his actions a coup. It may be worth describing politico-military developments leading to the July events and then examining the two opposing perspectives more closely.
Cambodia: A New Glimpse of Hope?
- from CAMBODIA
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- By Sorpong Peou, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 1997
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 07 September 1997, pp 83-104
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The year 1996 saw better prospects for peace, stability, and democracy in Cambodia. The cautious optimism of this article rests on the notion that peace and stability are relative terms and that democratization is a long and painful process from authoritarianism to liberal democracy. This article is based on the theoretical notion that the way to peace, stability, and democracy rests largely on the strengthening of a weak state which has been incapable of mobilizing resources to achieve national goals and the weakening of a strong society which has been able to successfully resist the state's national policy initiatives.
A close look at Cambodia in 1996 justifies this cautious optimism: the two major political parties within the state were not capable of tilting the balance of power at the expense of each other; opposition parties gained a degree of political legitimacy; and the Khmer Rouge guerrilla force declined rapidly. On the economic front, the country did not fall into total despair, despite the fact that the state still failed to mobilize resources to strengthen its own budget and to meet social needs and was unable to undertake administrative reform. On foreign affairs, Cambodia continued to expand its interactions with other countries and still enjoyed the international community's material and diplomatic support. Major aid donors adopted a more healthy policy attitude that contributed to the military decline of the Khmer Rouge rebels. Overall, 1996 gave Cambodia a better chance to eliminate violent social challenges to state authority (thus strengthening the weak state and weakening the strong society), to devote more attention to economic development (giving more legitimacy to the state), and to prepare for the next elections scheduled for 1998 (which would further legitimize state authority).
Political and Security Structural Development: From Unipolarity to Bipolarity?
The political and security developments during 1996 could give rise to a bipolar political and security structure: the rising tension between the two coalition partners (the Cambodian People's Party or CPP and FUNCINPEC or Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Independant, Neutre, Pacifique et Cooperatif);
Cambodia's Post-Cold War Dilemma: Democratization, Armed Conflict, and Authoritarianism
- from Cambodia
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- By Sorpong Peou, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 1996
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
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- 22 February 1997, pp 130-144
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Liberal scholars would contend that democratization is the sure path towards peace. Liberal democracies, they say, have never fought each other. To them, the post-Cold War global resurgence of democracy may be just the perfect assurance that we may well be on the way to living in a peaceful world. What most liberal scholars have not given enough thought to is the question of whether there is a relationship between democratization and war at the domestic, not the international, level. In this article, I will argue that pushing for rapid democratization in conditions of domestic anarchy may result in permanent conflict rather than peace and may work against democracy. Cambodia serves as an interesting study because of its enigmatic history awash with violence and blood. Although the United Nations and the international community have helped to nurture pandemic democratic values in this war-torn state, the process of democratization has so far failed to consolidate itself.1 Because they adopted an anti-Khmer Rouge policy in favour of rapid democratization, some influential external actors have inadvertently contributed to the perpetuation of the armed conflict and to the creation of a new authoritarian regime.
U.N. Intervention and Cambodian Democratization
The principal aim of the United Nations in getting involved in Cambodia between November 1991 and September 1993 was to create a neutral political environment for free and fair elections. It may be useful to look at the process of Cambodian democratization, starting from the time the war broke out and explaining why the Cambodian factions signed their peace agreement in 1991. The U.N. mission was a limited success story.
Democracy by External Intervention
After a brief period of democratic experiment following World War II (still under French colonial rule), Cambodia reverted to authoritarianism. Since the late 1960s Cambodia has been at war, thus making it difficult for the country to be a prospect for democracy. After a period of political stability under the leadership of Prince Sihanouk (Head of State), the country plunged into instability and chaos.
II - POLITICAL OUTLOOK 1997-98
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- By T.N. Harper, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Leonard Sebastian, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Felix Soh, Foreign Editor of the Straits Times (Singapore), Naimah Talib, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Nick Freeman, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Sorpong Peou, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Tin Maung Maung Than, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
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- Book:
- Regional Outlook
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 01 February 1997, pp 17-46
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Summary
Brunei
Domestically, Brunei continues to emphasize the conservative and traditional nature of its polity. In line with its national philosophy of Melayu Islam Beraja, Islam has been given a higher profile. Like other modernizing monarchies, the Sultanate has consistently made recourse to Islamic themes in a period of rising religious enthusiasm with the aim of reducing or neutralizing the effectiveness of Islamic opposition. Since 1990, the Sultan has called for existing laws in the state to be brought more in line with the teachings of Islam. A step in this direction is the Sultan's call to implement Shariah law beyond the sphere of family law and to apply it to criminal acts. Islamic banking institutions, introduced in the last few years, have reportedly been doing well, and the newly-established Islamic Trust Fund is gaining popularity among the dominant Muslim community.
The tiny kingdom was recently reminded of the tumultuous December 1962 revolt when Zaini Hj Ahmad, an ex-rebel leader, was released from detention and given a royal pardon just a few days before the Sultan's fiftieth birthday celebrations in July 1996. Zaini was one of the leaders of the Brunei revolt and had escaped from detention to Malaysia in 1973 and remained there as an exile until his recent return to the Sultanate for rehabilitation. The year 1996 also witnessed the historic meeting of the General Assembly of the mukim and kampong, local and village, consultative councils which were constituted in 1993 with the objective of consolidating the grassroots institutions of the penghulu and ketua kampong, the local and village heads.
The Royal Brunei Armed Forces will continue its modernization programme and has signed a contract with GEC Yarrows of Scotland for the supply of three offshore patrol vessels which will be delivered in 2000. These will be used to beef up the Sultanate's naval presence in the South China Sea, where it has a long-standing dispute with China over the Spratly Islands.
1 - POLITICAL OUTLOOK 1996–97
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- By Daljit Singh, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Asad Latif, The Straits Times, Liak Teng Kiat, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Leonard Sebastian, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Naimah Talib, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Nick Freeman, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Sorpong Peou, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Tin Maung Maung Than, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
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- Book:
- Regional Outlook
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 01 January 1996, pp 1-42
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Summary
Southeast Asian security is intertwined with the overall East Asian/ I Western Pacific situation. The East Asian picture today is a mixed one. The optimism about the future of the region based on a number of positive factors is now tempered with some political and security uncertainties. Tensions have built up in the Taiwan Strait which carry risks of military conflict and serious implications for U.S.-China relations. The situation on the Korean peninsula also looks more dangerous than it did a year ago. But first, the positive factors.
Positive Factors
These are well known. Most of the East Asian economies continue to roar ahead and economic interdependence continues to grow. The relationship between economics and interstate security is a complex one. It depends upon what forces impinge upon decision-making at any particular juncture. However, the relationship has been a positive one in much of East Asia in recent years. High growth rates also help to keep domestic social and political problems manageable. For instance, sharp declines in economic growth in countries such as Indonesia and China, which have serious underlying social problems, could produce social and political instability.
In the political-security field, relations between the major powers — the United States, China, Japan, and Russia — if not always amicable, have not been characterized by enmity, as was the case during the Cold War. The U.S. military presence and the U.S.-Japan defence alliance, widely regarded as the linchpin of East Asian security, continue and their importance was reaffirmed in the February 1995 U.S. Department of Defence document entitled United States Security Strategy for the East Asian Region.
ASEAN has been enormously successful as a confidence-building mechanism among its members and will continue to discourage interstate conflict within the Southeast Asian subregion. And in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole there is unprecedented dialogue on political, security, and economic issues at both the bilateral and multilateral levels. Two important region-wide multilateral institutions, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum, have been established in recent years for dialogue and co-operation on security and economics, respectively.