Review of Beyond Democracy in Cambodia
– 23 May 2014Posted in: Book Reviews, Cambodia, NM-TLC Reviews
Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2009. Pp. xvi, 320; table, list of acronyms and abbreviations, chapter bibliographies, notes, index.
Reviewed by Virak Thun.
On 23-28 May 1993, Cambodian citizens aged 18 and older cast their
ballots—for the first time after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime
(1975-79)—in a long-awaited election organized by the United Nations
Transitional Authority in Cambodia, or UNTAC. This election was expected
to transform Cambodia into a condition of “normalcy” in the wake of
protracted civil war and political conflict, to open a new chapter in
the lives of Cambodians, and to pave the way for post-conflict
reconstruction as well as democratic transition and consolidation.
The volume includes ten chapters, by Cambodian and non-Cambodian
researchers intimately familiar with the country’s situation. In Chapter
I, its editors, Joakim Öjendal and Mona Lilja, contend that Cambodia’s
achieving liberal democracy is highly unlikely, at least in the
predictable future, because of political culture and deeply rooted
patronage system on the one hand and the absence of prerequisites for
democracy on the other hand. The editors also link democracy to
political legitimacy. They write that “legitimacy is the ‘quality
indicator’ for assessing the ‘realness’ of Democracy” (p. 10). Öjendal
and Lilja further argue that a recipe for political legitimacy requires
three ingredients: impartial rule of law, establishment of accountable
and sustainable political institutions, and achievement of popularity.
This opening chapter is followed by a splendid array of critical
essays on elections, Cambodia’s judicial system, decentralization,
women’s political engagement, foreign aid, Buddhism, and the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). These essays
enrich our understanding of political reconstruction, democracy, and
legitimacy in the Cambodian context.
In Chapter II, Caroline Hughes offers a close examination of national
elections in Cambodia. She is skeptical about whether democracy with
political legitimacy can be promoted in the country by means of
elections. Elections are used as only a political show to gain external
legitimization rather than as a force for democracy.
In Chapter III, Kheang Un discusses the Cambodian judiciary, which he
regards as incompetent, corrupt, and politically manipulated. Because
of a scarcity of resources, low intra-institutional collaboration,
corruption, clientelism, and the absence of a separation of powers
(reflected in the intervention of the executive in judicial matters),
the judicial system has failed to implement the rule of law effectively
and impartially. This failure has undermined the promotion of democracy
and legitimacy in the country.
In Chapter IV, Kim Sedara and Joakim Öjendal touch primarily upon the
decentralization reform, which was a strategy for state reconstruction
in Cambodia after the 1993 national elections. The authors make the bold
claim that the decentralization reform was “probably the most
progressive and successful of all current attempts at rebuilding
statehood in post-conflict Cambodia” (p. 129). They elaborate on how
both local political arrangements, especially at the commune level, and
the current political structure were strengthened as a result of the
reform. Democratic decentralization served as an instrument of local
democratization, regime legitimacy, and post-conflict reconstruction,
the latter in the form of stability in local communities.
Mona Lilja’s Chapter V explores the marginalization of Cambodian
women’s political participation and the effects of globalization on this
participation. The author makes her argument clear at the outset:
globalization has helped enhance women’s political legitimacy.
In Chapter VI, Sophal Ear explains the impact of foreign aid on
political legitimacy in Cambodia. The author argues that, while the
extent to which internal legitimacy has been achieved using foreign aid
is contested, the Cambodian government has earned external recognition.
He warns that aid alone could not be a substitute for a true democratic
process. This has been the case in Cambodia, especially when the
government has received foreign aid with no or few conditions from
non-traditional donors such as China, which have not set liberal
agendas—such as protection of human rights and promotion of democracy—in
their aid programs. Furthermore, despite the massive flow of aid into
the country, rising inequality and corruption can be experienced or seen
in different walks of life.
In Chapter VII, Malin Hasselskog discusses political legitimacy in
rural Cambodia. In the process of (re)establishing the political
legitimacy of local authorities, she contends, a crucial challenge has
been the presence of development agencies operating in local
communities. Villagers might ask for help from these actors, which have
been better endowed with resources and more responsive than local
authorities—a process that has emasculated the (re)creation of local
political legitimacy. She argues that we should not expect externally
designed structures to achieve anticipated outcomes, because of
different local conditions and dynamics in the country. Furthermore, the
generation of local political legitimacy is not going to happen
overnight, as formidable challenges still remain in local areas.
John Marston’s Chapter VIII examines the role of the religion in
Cambodian society since 1989. He demonstrates that, as its revival swept
the country in the 1980s, Buddhism played a contributing role in
recreating and increasing political legitimacy.
Chapter IX, by Laura McGrew, questions the effectiveness of the ECCC
and its trials of Khmer Rouge figures. McGrew highlights obstacles to
the credibility and independence of the ECCC, the attainment of which
could contribute to increased political legitimacy for the Cambodian
government. While obstacles ranged from unclear government motivation to
inadequate funding, the deepest concern was the design of the ECCC
itself. As part of the Cambodian judicial system, the author argues, the
ECCC has been dominated by Cambodian judges, with only a few
international judges. It has been flawed and subject to political
interference. These factors could leave a scar on political legitimacy
for the government. McGrew’s points parallel those made in Kheang Un’s
chapter earlier in the volume.
The final chapter of the volume, by its editors, offers concluding remarks on political reconstruction-cum-democratization
in Cambodia. The editors raise the puzzle that they were originally
striving to crack: to what extent has political reconstruction in the
country developed through democratization? They demonstrate that
post-conflict reconstruction was relatively fruitful, and that the
Cambodian political context was better and more stable by 2009 than it
was in 1991. Arguably, the incumbent government is also able to maintain
a high level of political legitimacy. Nevertheless, they assert, “the
middle ground, democratization, which is presumed to deliver
post-conflict reconstruction, remains elusive” (p. 307).
Beyond Democracy in Cambodia has three limitations worth noting here.
First, when discussing democracy in Cambodia, the editors focus
primarily on political legitimacy, eschewing in-depth exploration of
economic development. More meaningful discussion about democracy should
be geared toward both political legitimacy and economic development. In
other words, these two structural characteristics are of paramount
importance to a well-rounded analysis of democracy. Overlooking either
of the two characteristics will, of course, limit or jeopardize
understanding of a democratic political system. One of the best analyses
of democracy through the lens of political legitimacy and effectiveness
(a function of economic development) can be found in Seymour Martin
Lipset’s article, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic
Development and Political Legitimacy” (1959).
Lipset’s framework is also useful for analyzing the stability of
political regimes, which is an element of post-conflict reconstruction.
He provides four plausible scenarios when investigating how the degree
of political legitimacy and effectiveness of a political system may
affect its capacity to survive and stabilize. The first scenario is that
a country will have a stable political system when it possesses high
levels of both political legitimacy and effectiveness. The second
scenario is in stark contrast to the first one. A society high on the
scales of both illegitimacy and ineffectiveness is very likely to be
unstable and eventually to witness political collapse, unless ruled by a
dictator or an authoritarian leader who remains in power by the use of
force. Third, an effective but illegitimate regime is not stable. Last, a
legitimate but ineffective regime is also unstable, but it is less
unstable than a political system high in effectiveness and low in
political legitimacy.
Second, the editors are correct to write that the political
opposition in Cambodia has been weakened by the ruling party, the CPP.
Nonetheless, the argument that “voters may remain loyal [to the CPP]
simply for lack of a viable alternative” (p. 8) can, from the
perspective of 2014, be refuted. In the July 2013 national elections,
the challenger party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), grabbed
a historic 55 National Assembly seats, while the incumbent ruling party
gained the remaining 68, winning only a marginal victory and losing its
two-thirds majority in the legislature. These results have the
significant implication that the CNRP was a viable alternative,
especially to younger members of the electorate. Those voters believed
that the CNRP would perform better than the current CPP-led government,
especially in dealing with such pressing issues as deep-seated
corruption, nepotism, environmental damage, high commodity prices,
illegal immigration (from Vietnam in particular), land-grabbing, and low
wages for public servants and garment workers. These issues are the
most serious concerns among Cambodian citizens, as reported by the
International Republican Institute (2014), which carried out a
nationwide survey of Cambodian public opinion with a sample of 2,000
respondents from 28 October to 10 November 2013.
Last, in Chapter VI of Beyond Democracy in Cambodia, Sophal
Ear argues that in Cambodia the effort to gain “external legitimacy has
enjoyed significant success” (p. 173). However, how external legitimacy
was built to such a high degree is not thoroughly discussed. Did foreign
aid contribute to increased external recognition? The argument would be
more cogent if the author explicitly addressed this question. It might
be true to assert that Cambodia’s government has gained an increasing
level of external legitimacy since normalcy returned to the country in
the 1990s. It should be noted, however, that the promotion of its
external legitimacy on the world stage has also been rocky, as
safeguards for human rights and the deepening of democracy, each
presumed to be an indispensable prerequisite of legitimacy-building,
have been absent in the country. In addition, the United States’ recent
cut in foreign aid channeled directly to the Cambodian government and
other possible international actions against the CPP government in the
wake of the allegedly unfair elections of 2013 may signal that its
international recognition has been called into question.
Readers should not let these shortcomings discourage them from turning to Beyond Democracy in Cambodia.
Even today, there is so much to learn from this meticulously written
volume. As the first study systematically to investigate the
post-conflict democratization process in Cambodia, this
thought-provoking work has significantly contributed to our
understanding of post-conflict reconstruction, democracy, and political
legitimacy. It also lays an intellectual foundation for ongoing and
future debates on democracy and democratization in the country. Finally,
it should be a must-read book not only for teachers and students of
political science in particular, but also for Cambodian bureaucrats and
policy-makers in general.
Virak Thun holds two master’s degrees, one in political science
from Northern Illinois University and another in international peace
studies from the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in San
José, Costa Rica.
References
International Republican Institute. “Survey of Cambodian Public Opinion: From October 28 to November 10.” (http://tinyurl.com/mu4w3op, accessed 3 March 2014).
Lipset, Seymour M. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” The American Political Science Review 53 (1959): 69-105.
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