Author Description

Many scholars have painted a grim picture of Cambodia. When the United Nations (UN) intervened in this country between November 1991 and May 1993, they prognosticated that the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was a mission bound to fail because, as socio-cultural institutionalists put it, it was based on Western ideas and liberal values. Legalists/moralists castigated the UN plan because it included the Khmer Rouge in the electoral process. Although this book recognizes the compelling arguments put forward by these scholars, the author tells his readers otherwise. He explains why the UN succeeded in getting the Cambodian adversaries to accept its peace plan and yet why the implementation process was not as successful as it had been anticipated. He then proposes that a more value-free psycho-structural approach to conflict analysis, known as conflict neutralization (based on the concept of security rather than that of power or peace), be seriously considered. This book is written by a Cambodian-Canadian scholar who believes that the world does not fully understand domestic conflicts in Third World countries in general and the Cambodian conflict in particular. He holds that Cambodia cannot stand on its own feet unless everyone involved clearly understands its intractable problems.