ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the characteristics of Khmer society and the history of civil society, which provides contextual background informing the question of the growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, operating under the assumption that an organic Cambodian civil society was close to being absent, supported the creation of local NGOs to, among other things, safeguard democracy and guarantee against state repression. Cambodians have been steeped in development discourses that are influenced by democratic principles such as accountability, transparency, equality and mass participation. In Cambodia, NGO formation has had little to do with whether a culture of civil society is evolving or is static. Democratic principles have failed to anchor in the way NGOs work, allowing hierarchy, class cleavages, patronage, nepotism and autocracy to pre-empt civil society tendencies and render NGOs an illusion, rather than a constituent part, of civil society.
