Politics

Memories of violence, suffering and atrocities in Cambodia are today being pulled in different directions. A range of transitional justice practices have been put to work in the name of redressing, restoring and renewing memory. At the centre of this stage is the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid tribunal established to prosecute the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, under which 1.6 million Cambodians died of hunger or disease or were executed.

International development efforts have increasingly focussed on governance and institutional reform as a means to address poverty and accountability, in particular decentralisation reform wherein public officials are held accountable for their decisions and responses to the voices and demands of the people through local elections, and key public services are provided locally.

The study has assessed the reconstruction programs in the post-conflict societies of Cambodia and Rwanda in the context of existing security challenges to women compared to their pre-conflict role and status. It has examined the causes of violence against women and how much the political stability, democratic form of government and economic progress helps to ensure security to women.

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975, they inherited a war-ravaged and internationally isolated country. Pol Pot’s government espoused the rhetoric of self-reliance, but Democratic Kampuchea was utterly dependent on Chinese foreign aid and technical assistance to survive. Yet in a markedly asymmetrical relationship between a modernizing, nuclear power and a virtually premodern state, China was largely unable to use its power to influence Cambodian politics or policy.

Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia enacted a program of organized mass violence that resulted in the deaths of approximately one quarter of the country’s population. Over two million people died from torture, execution, disease and famine. From the commodification of the ‘killing fields’ of Choeung Ek to the hundreds of unmarked mass graves scattered across the country, violence continues to shape the Cambodian landscape.

Neoliberal economics have emerged in the post-Cold War era as the predominant ideological tenet applied to the development of countries in the global south. For much of the global south, however, the promise that markets will bring increased standards of living and emancipation from tyranny has been an empty one. Instead, neoliberalisation has increased the gap between rich and poor and unleashed a firestorm of social ills.

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary team of established and emerging scholars from the disciplines of history, political science and communication studies, to provide a historical reappraisal of Cambodia’s relationships with the West. Contributors to the volume examine moments of historical import in Cambodia's history, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century.

This work tells of the events and personalities that shaped Cambodian history during the 13-year period between the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and the signing of the 1991 peace accords that resulted in UN-administered elections. It offers a nuanced understanding of complex questions concerning human rights, economic reconstruction, institutional development and national sovereignty, issues that were framed by the legacy of the Khmer Rouge and by a Vietnamese occupation.

This book illustrates the limits to the 1990s UNTAC peacekeeping intervention in Cambodia. It demonstrates that such an approach to conflict resolution is flawed and that liberal pluralism is not necessarily a reliable vehicle for heralding change in developing societies.

This fascinating book recounts the remarkable tale of a career U.N. official caught in the turmoil of international and domestic politics swirling around Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. First as a member of the U.N. transitional authority and then as a personal envoy to the U.N. secretary-general, Benny Widyono re-creates the fierce battles for power centering on King Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and Prime Minister Hun Sen.