ABSTRACT
The experience of Cambodia, one of the earliest states to be subjected to international intervention, suggests that claims by the United Nations and other interventionary actors in the 1990s to be operating in partnership with local populations were indeed misplaced. The people’s will concept, which performs a neutralizing procedural function in liberal democratic political discourse, was harnessed in Cambodia to exclusionary and xenophobic purposes by local politicians. The case of the Cambodian elections illustrates an important limitation on the use of internationally sponsored elections as part of a conflict resolution package. Rather than viewing the election itself as an act of sovereignty, Funcinpec and Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) supporters viewed the ouster of the Cambodian People’s Party as the sine qua non of Cambodian claims to sovereign autonomy. For Funcinpec and the SRP, a notion of the people’s conscience was central to their electoral propaganda in 1998.
