ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the various stages of Cambodia's most recent externally imposed political transition. It discusses the post-Cold War context into which the Cambodian experience appears to fit. The book presents the manner in which recent Cambodian political transition has often been a function of external interests, as well as indigenous experimentation. European imperialism turned the country into a protectorate under the French Union in Indochina. When a Cambodian plebiscite was ordained as the Cold War drew to a close, a huge interventionist force was required to create conditions favoured by foreign agencies in which this could take place. The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) withdrew after an 18-month mini-trusteeship. Political and social organisation altered little in the decade, although significant shifts from a planned to a market economy accompanied the liberalisation of private ownership laws after 1985.