Introduction

Over five days in May 1993, Cambodians lined up at polling booths across the country to cast ballots in an election led by the United Nations (UN) that was designed to put Cambodia on the path to democratization and development, and to begin resolving the sources of conflict within the country. The vote itself is understood to have been a remarkable achievement: there was surprisingly little violence, the Khmer Rouge (KR) did not block participation, 20 parties ran for election, and nearly 90 per cent of the eligible voters cast ballots. ¹ This marked the formal end of one of the first UN peacebuilding missions: a concept that had entered into popular discourse during the previous year through Boutros-Ghali’s An Agenda for Peace (1992). However, this was only a momentary return to the ‘normal democratic politics’ sought by the international community. A struggle for power erupted between the two main political parties immediately after the election, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), and Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendent, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif (FUNCINPEC), ending in a power-sharing agreement that largely ignored the election results. This apparent shortcoming of the peacebuilding process resulted in a sustained debate about whether the mission itself was a failure. At the same time, other aspects of the peacebuilding initiative have been lauded, in particular the state’s market reforms, the repatriation of refugees, and the dramatic expansion of civil society. This discussion about the relative successes or failures of the mission obscures a broader debate about peacebuilding, and ignores the more profound issues of how peacebuilding has come to dominate the way the North interacts with the South; how it favours particular forms of political organization over others; and how it determines what counts as security for peoples and communities. Crucially, peacebuilding assumes that the introduction of liberalism is the most effective means of addressing the sources of conflict within a given society. This entails plural democratic governance, liberal market reforms, and the formation of a vibrant and independent civil society.