IS402 MA - Research
- Keywords
- Ideological Inclination: A world view. The standard measure of what is proper and what is not proper what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
- A subtle way of Dictating how reality should be observed and handled who should be influencing who and who is supposed to be politically powerful and supported all the times
- Ideological Inclination: A world view. The standard measure of what is proper and what is not proper what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
- political thoughts/orientation and ideological inclination: liberalism, realism, marxism?
Brief Overview of What Happened During Cambodia’s Democracy Evolution
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The civil war of Cambodia solved with joint government
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After UNTAC’s organized election in 1993: parties weren’t challenged it’s validity
- Power sharing: dual prime minister
- The CPP held ministries that should’ve been separated from it’s influence
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After promising bloodshed if no powersharing mechanism is in place, CPP got military officers and a 36 vehicle convoy to Sihanouk’s place to ‘reconciliate and unify’
Elite political values regarding the design of balances of power between contesting political factions and monarchs [^2:^26]
💡 Read the paper in reference to 2: look for ideologies that explain power relation between political factions and monarchs
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IS404 Mid Term Conflict Resolution Process of the Intractable Conflict in Cambodia From 1979 to 1998
Ideological Understanding and Inquisitions
What is political ideology?
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Why do people use them?
- To gain mass support around a cause or world view of how politics should be managed rather than in support of one person or a specific goal.
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There’s a political ideology spectrum: 1
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What ideological inclination did important actors in the evolution of Cambodia’s democracy hold?
- Their position on the spectrum: Capitalists, Liberalists, Communist,
- How did they affect Cambodia’s democracy?
What conflict resolution mechanisms allowed for the peaceful rule of Cambodia through theoretical explainations.
- Henry Kissinger’s Dictum: “the standard method of solving civil war is to make contestants govern jointly” 2
- Khmer rouge Win-Win policy by Hun Sen
What is democracy?
- Is it the only or best form of government that has ever and will ever exist?
- What ideology was Cambodia before democracy creeped into it?
- Monarchy was the norm similar to the ‘Old Liberty’ form of government by monarchs and aristocrats John Stuart Mill 3
- What effects is it supposed to have according to Stuart? And what actually happened for Cambodia?
- Turned into an autocracy? (still old liberty)
- Turned into semi-democracy
- Monarchy was the norm similar to the ‘Old Liberty’ form of government by monarchs and aristocrats John Stuart Mill 3
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Sangkum Reastr Niyum (People’s Socialist Community): political movement by Sihanouk, very popular 4
“Ideology is an imperative factor in construction of a modern state”
- Sihanouk
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His ideology was Unity, modernization, and dynamism
Our socialism … differs profoundly from Marxist socialism or Communism. It is essentially Khmer, taking inspiration directly from our religious principles, preaching mutual assistance and social action with a moral concern for all, implying a great respect for the human person and establishing its aim as the well-being and fulfilment of the individual.
- It’s a neutrality, picking neither capitalism or communism, but somewhere in the middle
- The state works together with the individual to increase his welfare and not to serve it’
- state controls the national economy, protects the citizen from exploitation by a privileged class, ‘assures his existence and dignity and gives him the material means to find happiness
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Khmer Republic in the Kingdom of Cambodia (1947 - 1970)
- Although the regime led by Lon Nol did not achieve much, he had the ideology of chauvinism (devoted to, glorifies past ancestors as purpose for present actions)
- Lon Nol wanted Cambodia to become a Buddhist military state instead of a democracy
- He proposed ‘Neo-Khmerism’
- to modernize: bring socio-economic, cultural, and scientific development to the Khmer people
- to achieve socialism through nationalism, republican democracy and popular well-being
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Radical socialist revolutionaries ruling Democratic Kampuchea until 1979 (Khmer Rouge)
- Doesn’t align with either left or right
- Didn’t have any reference to Marx, Lennin, or Mao in its documentations and broadcasts
- to lead its people to succeed in national democratic revolution, to exterminate the imperialists, feudalists, and capitalists
- when they got power redefined to 1) the socialist revolution and 2) national defense
- banning freedom of religion, any western practices, and set up collective systems
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Vietnam-backed Cambodian-communists as the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) (1979)
- On paper, it aimed to establish a people’s democratic regime who is peaceful, independent, democratic, neutral, and a non-aligned country moving towards socialism
- But it was still considered a Vietnamese satellite state or lackey though
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These regimes wanted change rather than development, making Cambodia very unstable
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Each regime took on their own ‘Khmer socialism’ because Cambodian’s tradition of mutual assistance society which did not translate well to agrarian socialism.
Current Day Ideology In Cambodia
- Cambodia has become a non-ideological state since Hun Sen’s rule 4
- What is political ideology?
- What political ideology did Cambodia have in general before 1993 election?
- Before the French colonialism, Cambodia was a monarchy, which turned into a constitutional monarchy, then liberal democracy afterwards.
- Before 1993 UNTAC election, Cambodia had one ruling group after another separated by coups, takeovers, and revolutions instead of democratic processes. These groups, rulers, and leaders have their own political orientations inclinations of how society should be structured either democratic, communist, socialist, capitalist.
- How has Cambodia transformed the state’s leadership ideology through out its history?
- Cambodia transformed its sense of liberty from one of ‘old liberty’, concentrated around monarchy or aristocratic rulers, to one of ‘new liberty’, where leaders represent the people’s interests, such as one established after the 1993 election.
- What is the state of Cambodian leadership’s ideology today? What are the consequences of that?
- However, what is Cambodian leaders’ ideologies today? Some say Cambodia’s leader, Hun Sen, no longer follows a ideology 4, but we can see the pandering to more authoritarian, one-party elections and the obvious biased relations to China.