Politics of regime survival: a case study of Cambodia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Strategic Survival of Electoral Authoritarian Regimes The Case of Cambodia 1993-2016.pdf
For many years, scholars have debated the durability of hybrid or authoritarian regimes.23 In their selectorate theory, Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, Siverson and Morrow postulate that leaders of a regime survive because of their winning coalitions, known as sets of people who support the rulers to remain in office or power.24 In nondemocratic or hybrid regimes, the winning coalition is a group or a set of people who possess power to keep the leaders in office, and in democratic regimes, is a set of people who select or elect the leaders. Furthermore, Bueno de Mesquita et al. assert that to maintain office tenure by keeping the winning coalition loyal, the ruling parties have to design appropriate policies, especially concerning the distribution of private and public goods, to not only serve vested interests of the winning coalitions, but also to entice all of the electorate or society. In democratic regimes where the winning coalition is large, the regimes distribute public goods; however, in authoritarian or hybrid regimes where the winning coalition is small, the regimes distribute private goods to keep their supporters loyal. Despite being praised by a number of scholars25, Bueno de Mesquita et al.’s conceptualization has raised two puzzles: (i) how regimes generate goods (wealth) to entice the winning coalition; and (ii) how the regimes deal with challengers, especially in hybrid regimes. As a contribution to resolving these puzzles, this paper draws upon evidence from the Cambodian case where a hybrid regime has survived over two decades.
The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations, 2009
This chapter is concerned with whether large-scale statebuilding interventions have an impact on democratizing state polities much beyond their metropolitan centers. It reviews the effectiveness of statebuilding in Cambodia vis-à-vis its impact on aspects of the political and social organization of metropolitan elites and rural masses, and finds that, after 17 years, political change in both sectors has been superficial and remains operationalized and dominated by informal, socially-ruled systems of patronage and clientelism, rather than determined by impartial, independent and impersonal institutions associated with the democratic prerogative explicit in statebuilding and democratization. The chapter discusses how comprehending political activities is complicated by the appearance of democracy disguising the functioning of political and social institutions. There are, it argues, superficial political institutions in the metropolis of Phnom Penh that are nominally democratic, but which, on closer scrutiny, are political husks. They are less meaningful democratic institutions concerned with the rule of law and the separation of powers, for instance, and more labeled buildings. Furthermore, rural areas seem even less susceptible to democratization than the metropolis, especially where -new‖ systems render people temporarily or permanently less secure than the pre-democratic means of social organization. The chapter proposes that statebuilding in Cambodia has been of limited impact in terms of its implicit and explicit democratization agenda.
Klepto-Neoliberalism: authoritarianism and patronage in Cambodia
Neoliberalism is never uniform. Instead, it is always hybridized and imbricated within existing political economic matrixes and sociocultural process. In the Cambodian context neoliberalism is characterized by its intersection with kleptocracy, and specifically the ways in which patronage has enabled local elites to transform, co-opt, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that has focused on ‘asset stripping’ public resources. This chapter examines the Royal Government of Cambodia’s (RGC) discursive positioning of populism vis-à-vis international ‘enemies’ inasmuch as it presents a convenient pretext for the tensions of neoliberal development. This discussion critiques the frequent suggestion that the RGC maintains a ‘communist’ outlook rather than recognizing the kleptocratic ‘shadow state’ practices that have been modified to accommodate a neoliberal modality. I then turn my attention more specifically to the mechanisms of Cambodia’s patronage system via an analysis of privatization and primitive accumulation. I assess these developments through a critique of the purview that legal reform will somehow serve as cure-all for development, contrasting this idea with the realities of a judiciary firmly entrenched within patron relations. The degree of political patronage in Cambodia reflects a certain nepotism, or what I am calling ‘nepoliberalism’ to signify a particular application of neoliberalism that is never without the influence of patron politics. The enduring impunity of those with connections to power is the concentration of the final section before the conclusion, where I assess the continuing constraints of the poor with regards to patronage and the inequality and precarity it affords. It is here, in the question of (in)security that Cambodia’s neoliberalization alongside patronage demonstrates the depth of kleptocracy and violence in the country.
Third World Quarterly
Elite corruption may have a significant role in ending conflicts and shaping post-conflict development. This article enquires into the legitimacy accorded to such corruption. It reviews literature on post-conflict Cambodia, seeking evidence that academic commentaries, public opinion or elites themselves regard elite corruption as a legitimate Machiavellian tool for achieving other ends. Corruption has been an element of the style of government adopted by the dominant party in Cambodia, shaping both the achievement of peace and the uneven economic development that followed. Academic commentaries provide some implicit and explicit legitimation of corruption as a means to secure peace and to resist neoliberal policy settings by affording government discretionary resources and power. Meanwhile, public dissatisfaction with elite corruption appears to the most likely source of renewed violent conflict in Cambodia. How elite actors rationalise and legitimise corrupt behaviour remains poorly understood, and is deserving of more attention.
The Failure of Democratisation by Elections in Cambodia
Contemporary Politics, 2017
This article questions the explanatory power of the theory of democratisation by elections. This approach to democratisation argues that elections in authoritarian regimes constitute part of a metagame between ruling elites and opponents, which involves a competition for votes inside a larger competition over the nature of political power. The cumulative effect is that even flawed elections raise the costs of repression and lower the costs of toleration in ways that eventually bring about democracy. When applied to the most likely case of Cambodia, however, electoral democratisation has resoundingly failed to occur. Instead, this article argues that neopatrimonialism inhibits the transformative power of elections by preventing the emergence of resolute democratic ideals, reform-minded elites and pro-democratic institutions. In this way, the distribution of party-state patronage constitutes a method of co-optation; and flawed elections represent a mechanism to renew and reinforce the historical roots and structural basis of state authority. Using the case of Cambodia, this article develops an account of neopatrimonialism in authoritarian elections and explores the implications of the Cambodian experience for the democratisation by elections theory more broadly.
Cambodia: Getting Away with Authoritarianism?
Journal of Democracy, 2005
What if a country holds an election but it proves not to matter? Cambodians voted nationwide in July 2003, only to see their polity’s three main political parties take almost a year to form a new administration. The long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen won 47.4 percent of the popular vote but gained 59.3 percent of
Credible Power-Sharing and the Longevity of Authoritarian Rule
Comparative Political Studies, 2008
To survive in office, dictators need to establish power-sharing arrangements with their ruling coalitions, which are often not credible. If dictators cannot commit to not abusing their “loyal friends”—those who choose to invest in the existing autocratic institutions rather than in forming subversive coalitions— they will be in permanent danger of being overthrown, both by members of the ruling elite and by outside rivals. This article explores the role of autocratic political parties and elections (both one-party and multiparty) in mitigating the commitment problem, making power-sharing between the dictator and his ruling coalition possible.
The Political Economy of Cambodia's Transition 1991-2001
2003
This book explores the three continuing, intertwined transitions which have taken place in Cambodia since the late 1980s - the transition from command economy to free market, from civil war to peace, and from single-party authoritarianism to multiparty democracy. Using a political economy approach and drawing on extensive original research, the book argues that the first transition, to the free market, has been particularly important in determining the character of the other transition processes. The reorientation of the state on the basis of personal netowrks of political loyalty and economi entrepreneurship, backed by the threat of violence, permitted the emergence of a limited political accommodation between the major parties in the 1990s, which provided few benefits to Cambodia's poor. The book goes on to show how the interaction between local, state, transnational and international networks has provided different opportuniteis for local participation and empowerment in rural and urban areas, and suggests that the roots of a future Cambodian democracy lie in this local activity, rather than primarily in elite or international policies for state transformation.
Democracy and Security , 2018
What is the effect of foreign aid on the survival of autocratic regimes? Extant work about the effect of foreign aid on the recipient’s political regime has come to contradictory conclusions. Current findings display the full spectrum of possibilities from a democratizing effect to the enhancement of authoritarian survival. While some studies suggest that foreign aid strengthen autocrats and their incentives to cling to power, others have focused on specific periods and donors, thus finding a democratizing effect of foreign aid. In this article, we argue that the effect of foreign aid on autocratic survival does not operate in a direct way, but it is conditional on the levels of political leverage exerted by democratic donors vis-à-vis the autocratic leaders. This leverage, we find, is defined by the capability of democratic donors to back conditionality with effective political pressure. More specifically, we find that given similar levels of aid, autocratic recipients that are highly dependent on the United States—a quintessential democratic donor with extensive political influence—have a shorter survival rate when compared to those with which the United States has weaker ties and thus lower leverage.
Cambodia Twenty Years On: A Political Dynasty in the Making?
After a few decades of authoritarian control and civil war, Cambodia held a UN-sponsored multiparty national election in 1993. Twenty years after the UN left Cambodia, despite some periods of political deadlock, Cambodia's electoral democracy, undoubtedly not without flaws, appears to be relatively stable and has been accepted as a norm.