Contemporary Cambodia and her Neighbors
Follow-up Planning Workshop
17-18 March 2008, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Aurel Croissant
Introduction: The Project
Although it is fruitful to study Cambodian politics from a Cambodian perspective, ‘the country’s location, topography, and demographic weakness have meant that its fate for over two hundred years has been entangled with Thailand and Vietnam’ (Chandler 1996: 242). Historically, Cambodia was caught between regional powers, particularly Vietnam, China, and Thailand. Cambodia’s contemporary relations with her two powerful neighbors are dominated by cooperation and conflict. Cambodia continues to stagger under the weight of a range of fundamental problems that are rooted in the nation's location and history. These problems include its physical vulnerability, the deceptive lure of its history, economic underdevelopment and weakness, and its volatile political culture. At least two of the obstacles to peace and progress in Cambodia--its physical vulnerability and its location between Thailand and Vietnam--are insuperable givens that have affected the country for several hundred years. Cambodia's borders have always made it vulnerable to invasion and accessible to immigrants. Its limited resources can be exploited relatively easily and quickly. Cambodia's geographic vulnerability, along with the small size of its population, heightens its people's sense of insecurity vis-à-vis their neighbors and restricts Cambodian governments to a cautious, even-handed foreign policy.
In this context, the aim of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s project on “Contemporary Cambodia and her neighborhood relations” is to promote dialogue on the existing relations between Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and to facilitate an exchange of opinions on the future development of Cambodian-Thai and Cambodian-Vietnamese relations. The individual studies will serve the purpose of giving an overview on current themes and issues in bilateral relations as well as suggestions for the development of policy recommendations for the further improvement of those relations.
At the center of this project is the notion of ‘sovereignty’. Sovereignty, though its meanings have varied across history, has a core meaning, supreme authority within a territory. In the past, Cambodia’s neighborhood relations had been a continuous struggle of Khmer elites to establish and secure national sovereignty against the dominance of Thailand and Vietnam.
In this context, three thematic issues are relevant: the issue of territorial integrity; the issue of economic empowerment; and the issue of political autonomy. The three issues resonate with different connotations of the notion of sovereignty. Simultaneously, these themes touch on different arenas of bilateral relations: border issues, economic cooperation and political relations.
Because the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung is not only interested in academic research but also in a strong public outreach and policy-relevance of the research, it implies (1) that the project should have an impact on public discussions in the three countries; (2) the findings of the research are therefore supposed to include some form of policy briefs that address academics, public officials, representatives of civil society, and the broader public. The individual studies serve the purpose of giving an overview on empirical facts and societal perceptions of bilateral relations. After analyzing the state of relations within these thematic arenas the project aims to provide input for policy-makers, civil society organizations and the general public to debate promising options for improving the quality of bilateral relations in general.
I. The Background
Since the 1780s, if not earlier, Cambodia has been harassed, dominated, protected, exploited, and undermined by Thai or Vietnamese governments. The involvement of these two countries in Cambodia's affairs intensified in the early nineteenth century as the newly installed dynasties in Bangkok and Hue grew strong, competitive, and ambitious. Had the French not imposed their protection in 1863, Cambodia might have disappeared as an independent state, with its territory divided into Thai and Vietnamese zones of influence. With French intervention, Thai influence diminished. Vietnamese involvement persisted in another guise. France quarantined Cambodia from Siam and tied the country's export economy to that of southern Vietnam. Ethnic Vietnamese had greater access than Cambodians to French-language education and occupied favored positions in the protectorate's civil service. "Indochina," made up of three segments of Vietnam plus Laos and Cambodia, was a French concoction dominated by its Vietnamese components.
Cambodia’s position in the middle of Southeast Asia during the volatile 1960s and 1970s forced questions of national sovereignty to the fore. Thus, historically Cambodia has felt politically and territorially pressed between Thailand and Vietnam. Moreover, the main cultural divide running through ‘Indochina’ is that which divides mainland Southeast Asia between the ‘Indianized’ states of Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and the ‘Sinicized’ Vietnam. This cultural divide may explain why the attitude of the Khmer towards the Vietnamese is significantly different form that towards the Thai. Although there are border controversies, problems of economic dominance and a tendency among Thailand’s political elite to disregard political sensitivities in Phnom Penh, which burden bilateral relationship, it is the Vietnamese who are regarded by the majority of the Khmer as intruders, whose presence in the country many perceive as a threat to the ‘Khmer-ness’ of the nation. Although the Vietnamese do not form one coherent ethnic community, the Khmer nationalist elite (including western-hailed opposition) who pursue anti-Vietnamese propaganda since independence, have tended to ignore this fact, and little allowance has been made for the diversity of Vietnamese communities within the ethnic category ‘Vietnamese’.[1]
Consequently, since independence, the Cambodian governments and the Khmer educated elite have always regarded Vietnam and the Vietnamese as the main threat to Cambodian, political, economic and territorial sovereignty. For example, many Khmer consider the Mekong Delta as kompuchea krom, a Cambodian territory unlawfully annexed by Vietnam. Even after the nation regained sovereignty at the end of the United Nations Transitional Authority in 1993, time and again, Khmer pointed to immigration by Vietnamese rice farming population along border provinces of Prey Veng and Svay Rieng. Accordingly, the Vietnamese government is accused by many Khmer academics, social activists and politicians to have ‘encroached’ Cambodia’s territorial integrity in search of land. Vietnamese expansionism is a recurrent theme in propaganda of opposition parties, as is the economic ‘sold out’ of Cambodia’s natural resources to Vietnamese investors (including the military). Political opponents of the Cambodian government under Prime Minister Hun Sen are and portraying it as a “puppet regime” of Hanoi. More extreme voices accuse Hanoi to employ a policy of forced ‘Vietnamization’ of Cambodia since the 1980s, nibbling away at Cambodia by annexing sizable portions of its borders, coastlines and islands, and exploiting natural resources located at the northeastern provinces in Cambodia through measures to promote the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia triangle of development.
While the Khmer perception is dominated by a strong sense of political, military and economic vulnerability, the Vietnamese perspective is dominated by geopolitical security concerns and interest in economic exchange. Vietnam's once far-reaching political interests in Cambodia seem to have faded along with any dreams the Vietnamese may have had of a socialist grouping of Indochinese states. Vietnam now seems more interested in becoming a good citizen of Southeast Asia. At the same time, however, Vietnamese exploitation of resources in eastern Cambodia and immigration into the country will probably maintain present levels or increase. In the process, ethnic tensions are bound to erupt, intensified by demographic pressures and fanned by irresponsible politicians.
According to the Thai government’s official rhetoric, economic cooperation and exchange between Thailand and Cambodia is for the mutual benefit of both nations. While most informed people in Bangkok agree that there is a considerable extent of corruption and illegal activities involved in Thai investments along the Thai-Cambodian border, the general view among Thailand’s economic and political elite is that Thai activities are meant to create a new ‘economic partnership’ between both countries. In reality, however, the general attitude within the Thai public and the policy community towards Cambodia is less strongly in favor of an ‘equal status’ of the two countries. For example, the standard text books on Thai history, at both school and university levels, usually begin with the migration of the Thai ‘race’ from the North to the Chaophraya River basin, where the Khmer had earlier settled. The rapid expansion of the Thai kingdom finally brought down the Angkorean Empire. Moreover, Thai popular history books often describe Cambodia as a subordinate, untrustworthy neighbor, many times shifting its loyalty between the Thai and the Vietnamese courts. Cambodia sought to attack Siam whenever the Thai kingdom was facing trouble. The classic case with which the Thais have been familiar was the execution of Cambodian King Lovek by the Ayudhyan King Naresuan. The Thai version of the King Lovek story still dominates the general understanding of Thai-Cambodian relations among many Thais. The wars and chaos in Cambodia between 1970 and the 1990s have always been described as the fault of Cambodians, while the Thai policy of backing various warring factions inside Cambodia is interpreted as based on rights to secure legitimate Thai interests or to prevent Cambodia from ‘Vietnamization’.
Such historiography has enhanced a nationalistic feeling of a great nation with a great history in comparison to its neighboring countries. On the other hand, it has depicted Cambodia as an inferior nation. Perhaps, the perception of Cambodia as a poor, inferior country with little business potential still is widely shared among Thais. In general one may believe that the ‘Thai government, elite and academic specialists, know and care very little of/about Khmer economy, politics, society and culture. Thus, many foreign observers believe that nationalistic attitudes and ignorance is an obstacle for Thailand to develop a constructive policy towards Cambodia.
Needless to say that the historical relations between Cambodia and her neighbors will neither determine Cambodia's future nor the future course of her bilateral relations. But there are after effects. First of all many Cambodians believe that Vietnam poses a greater threat to Cambodia than Thailand and suggest that while Thai exploitation is more or less only a case of short-term economic interests the Vietnamese agenda is deeper and more devious. Second, military threats to Cambodian sovereignty have diminished but Cambodia will never be militarily strong enough or populous enough to withstand pressures from Vietnamese immigrants and foreign entrepreneurs. In the process, its resources will be wantonly depleted. Third, there is a latent potential for an escalation of rhetoric and a sudden outbreak of violence between Thailand and Cambodia. In this context, the burning of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh in 2003 is indicative. While conciliatory moves by both sides and unconditional offers of compensation from the Cambodian government indicate robustness of the relationship, the incidence clearly demonstrated how Cambodia’s internal politics can strain its relations with Thailand (and Vietnam).
In this context, a first workshop organized by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and her Cambodian partner organizations was held in September 2007. The workshop identified three thematic issues that are related to Cambodia’s search for national sovereignty and which were regarded as most appropriate for further research: territorial integrity, political autonomy and economic empowerment of Cambodia.
II. The notion of sovereignty and Cambodia’s search for sovereignty
The aim of this project is to analyze Cambodia’s bilateral relations with Thailand and Vietnam through the conceptual lens of sovereignty. Thus, the conceptual core of the project is the concept of sovereignty. In terms of sovereignty, many academics agree that the sovereignty of state in pre-modern Southeast Asia was neither single nor exclusive. Instead of establishing an independent state as a buffer zone, for example, the overlords shared sovereignty over the buffer zones. Hence, not only had Siam, Cambodia and Vietnam never been bound by the modern kind of boundary the Western colonial powers had in mind when the begun mapping the region and drawing borders to mark their colonial possessions, but these kingdoms were also surrounded by common frontiers, border areas of shared sovereignty.
The countries of Southeast Asia provide an especially illuminating space within which to examine the continuing theoretical relevance and empirical significance of sovereignty. Even a cursory historical survey of the region demonstrates that not only is the idea of sovereignty a relatively recent innovation in Southeast Asia and a product of the decolonization process, but that it has assumed a distinctive form. Initially, at least, sovereignty was a mechanism for structuring the international relations between core and periphery and thus a central component of colonial domination. Strang (1996: 25) argues that non-Western forms of sovereignty were effectively de-legitimated by the colonial powers, forcing the incorporation of vast areas of the world into an international political and economic order that was dominated by, and primarily run for the benefit of, a handful of imperial powers. Yet despite this rather brutal introduction into an emergent global system, the nations of Southeast Asia have generally taken to the idea of sovereignty with alacrity.
The history of sovereignty can be understood through two broad movements, manifested in both practical institutions and political thought. The first is the development of a system of sovereign states, culminating at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporaneously, sovereignty became prominent in political thought through the writings of Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes. The second movement is the circumscription of the sovereign state, which began in practice after World War II and has since continued through European integration and the growth and strengthening of laws and practices to protect human rights.
Sovereignty is a signature feature of modern politics; some scholars, however, have doubted whether a stable, essential notion of sovereignty exists. In fact, there is a definition that captures what sovereignty came to mean in early modern Europe and of which most subsequent definitions are a variant: supreme authority within a territory. Historical manifestations of sovereignty are almost always specific instances of this general definition.
Sovereignty as supreme authority within a territory describes a modern notion of political authority. Historical variants can be understood along three dimensions -- the holder of sovereignty, the absoluteness of sovereignty, and the internal and external dimensions of sovereignty. The state is the political institution in which sovereignty is embodied.
Each component of this definition highlights an important aspect of the concept. First, a holder of sovereignty possesses authority. That is to say, the person or entity does not merely wield coercive power, defined as A’s ability to cause B to do what he would otherwise not do. Authority is rather what philosopher R.P. Wolff proposed: “the right to command and correlatively the right to be obeyed.”[1] What is most important here is the term “right,” connoting legitimacy. A holder of sovereignty derives authority from some mutually acknowledged source of legitimacy. In the contemporary era, some body of law is ubiquitously the source of sovereignty. In the more recent political history of Cambodia, the source of sovereignty always has been contested among Khmer factions – factions, which usually were supported by the Vietnamese or Thai government. Second, sovereign authority is exercised within borders (internal sovereignty), but also, by definition, with respect to outsiders, who may not interfere with the sovereign’s governance. External sovereignty means a state’s freedom from outside influence upon its basic prerogatives. It depends on recognition by outsiders. To states, this recognition is what a no-trespassing law is to private property -- a set of mutual understandings that give property, or the state, immunity from outside interference.
Needless to say that the system of nation states is characterized by major disparities in the capacities of states; for some of the smaller European states, for example, sovereignty is juridical rather than empirical. In other words, some states are creations of, and dependent on, the inter-state system itself for their continuity, legitimacy and status as sovereign entities. In this context, the highly circumscribed realization of state power and authority in Cambodia, for example, reveals noteworthy deviations from the ideal-type of juridical state authority, and has led some observers to describe Cambodia as enjoying ‘partial’, rather than complete sovereignty.
Nonetheless, the notion of sovereignty may serve as a useful broad-brush indicator of what an independent nation might look like or aspire to be. However, we have to keep in mind that, despite Southeast Asia’s notable enthusiasm for the concept, the notion of sovereignty remains problematic. And yet because many of the states of Southeast Asia have been and remain ‘weak’, lacking in ‘infrastructural capacity’ (Michael Mann) and with a compromised and dependent form of sovereignty at best, they have been keen to defend ‘their’ sovereignty. Importantly, the purposes to which state power were put, and the manner in which it was consolidated, were not timeless expressions of some essential and ubiquitous sovereign imperative, but contingent reflections of Southeast Asia’s unique geo-political position. Sovereignty, in other words, even where it remains a meaningful indicator of state capacity and independence, is not only variable in degree, it is also constructed and constituted in highly distinctive ways that reflect ideational as well as material factors.
It seems fair to say that Cambodia is not unique among Southeast Asian nations or developing countries. Even one of the most eloquent defenders of the continuing theoretical and pragmatic importance of sovereignty, Stephen Krasner, acknowledges that sovereignty has never been either complete or unchallenged. Moreover, the control of territory and population, which classically was the basis of sovereignty, is eroding in many regions of the world as a consequence of the trans-national flows of capital, labor, products, and ideas (i.e. ‘globalization’). Sovereignty in Southeast Asia has always been precarious, imperfectly realised, and the product of that region’s often troubled relationship with ‘the West’. Rather what is exceptional in the case of Cambodia is (1) the degree of limitations or restrictions on sovereignty; (2) the fact that the limitation (or even violation) of Cambodian sovereignty is not a recent phenomenon but a historically constant factor; (3) the frequency and intensity with which Cambodia’s neighbors time and again have exploited the weaknesses of the Cambodian state to erode its sovereignty for the pursuit of realizing own interests, whereby the Khmers’ sense of vulnerability was intensified. While sovereignty is never complete or unchallenged, the capacity of the Cambodian state to act decisively was and still is particularly constrained.
III. The Conceptual and Analytical Framework
The project is looking at ways and means by which Cambodia’s neigbhorhood relations can better meet the needs and aspirations of all involved nations. As an outcome of the previous planning workshop in September 2007, three thematic aspects or issues of contemporary Cambodia’s search for sovereignty have been identified as relevant. The particular focus of the study is on these three central themes:
1. the issue of territorial integrity that is control of the Cambodian state over its geographical and national borders;
2. the issue of economic sovereignty or ‘self-determination’, understood as the Cambodian state’s control over its nation’s own economic resources;
3. the issue of political autonomy, that is, the Cambodian state’s right to command and correlatively the right to be obeyed without undue intervention from or interference by the governments of neighboring countries.
Obviously, those three issues resonate with different connotations of the notion of sovereignty. Simultaneously, these themes touch on the most relevant arenas of contemporary bilateral relations–border issues, economic cooperation and political relations.
The following preliminary set of questions may serve as a basis for further research and discussion. The first set of three questions deals with the “factual’ situation as it can be evaluated from the ‘objective’ data and empirical information that is at hand. The second set of questions focuses on the perception of the individual issue among the public and the elites in the three countries. The third set of questions address the aspect of improving mutual understanding and the quality of relations between Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
A. Stock taking of current relations:
- What is the status of bilateral relations in terms of border issues, that is, what are the ‘factual’ issue problems?
- What is the status of bilateral relations in terms of economic exchange, that is, what are the ‘factual’ issues problems?
- What is the status of bilateral relations in terms of political cooperation and conflict, that is, what are the ‘factual’ issue problems?
B. Perceptions of current relations:
- What is or what are the perceptions regarding border issues in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam?
- What is or what are the perceptions regarding economic cooperation between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in each country?
- What is or what are the perceptions regarding political cooperation in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam?
More specifically, the project is interested in developing a better understanding of the relevance of the individual issue among policy-makers and the general public, factors which shape those perceptions as well as the agents and medium or media through which these perceptions are formed and communicated.
C. Prospects for improving current relations
After having presented the findings of the analysis, each study should provide tentative conclusions and policy recommendations in order to address the following three questions:
- How can bilateral relations in terms of economic cooperation, political cooperation and the non-violent management of border issues be improved and by whom?
- What can be done to enhance the awareness among policy-makers and civil society leaders in the three nations for public perceptions of bilateral issues in their neighbour country?
- What is the role of external actors such as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in improving the quality of bilateral relations, influencing public perceptions and public opinion inside Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam? To be more precise, how can Friedrich Ebert Stiftung achieve the underlying aim of this project—contributing to mutual understanding and the development of sustainable solutions to the problems of cooperation between Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam?
Thus, this project deals with the question of how economic and political relations between these countries within the context of Cambodia’s historical vulnerability and insecurity have evolved since 1993, what the critical problems of bilateral relations are and what the perceptions on issues included in the study are in each of the three nations. These questions will be discussed primarily on an empirical level. For the purpose of producing sound statements about Thai-Khmer and Vietnamese-Khmer relations from which recommendations for further improvement of these relationships can be derived, the study is grounded on a research design that combines different methodological perspectives.
Needless to say, several factors influence the current state of relations Cambodian-Thai-Vietnamese in terms of territorial disputes, economic relations and political cooperation. Structural factors affect the capacity of individual governments to adequately represent national interests. Institutional factors play an important role in the formulation of national interests. Culture and historical experiences influence how individuals, social groups and political elites perceive relations. However, one has to keep in mind that the definition of national interests, the perception of cultural differences, and historical experiences are always socially constructed. While structural factors influence the capacity of governments and societies to formulate their interests and satisfy their needs, and institutional factors affect processes of the formulation of interests and decision-making, socially constructed perceptions is one, if not the most crucial, factor in determining the long term prospects for bilateral relations between different nations and societies.
Thus, constructivism forms a core theoretical component in the framework used for analyzing trilateral relations between Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand is constructivism. Constructivism is perhaps most closely associated with Alexander Wendt (1992), as he has applied the ideas of social constructionism to the field of international relations. Wendt laid the theoretical groundwork for challenging what he considered to be a flaw shared by both neorealists and neoliberal institutionalists, namely, a commitment to a (crude) form of materialism. By attempting to show that even such a core realist concept as "power politics" is socially constructed—-that is, not given by nature and hence, capable of being transformed by human practice--Wendt opened the way for a generation of international relations scholars to pursue work in a wide range of issues from a constructivist perspective.
Constructivism and the “cultural turn in social sciences” (Reckwitz 2000) had reached studies of Southeast Asia in the 1990s. “Weak” cognitivist approaches subsequently became the theoretical vanguard in explaining Southeast Asian regionalism (Rüland 2006). Social constructivism questions the rationalist epistemological foundations of realist and institutionalist approaches and rejects the latters’ notion that there are given national interests that, if at all, change little over time and space. Cognitivist approaches insist that state interests are socially constructed and hence prone to change and that, accordingly, the observed processes of norm building in the region shape a common regional identity. Cognitivists thus further posit that common interests are not derived from shared material interests but the conscious fostering of shared values and norms.
Cognitivism has facilitated interesting and innovative research on “cultures of cooperation” (Rüland 2002; Loewen 2005) The latter are seen as being formed in a process of interaction with other regions (“regionalism through interregionalism”), which sharpens differences between self and other and, as a corollary, drives the resuscitation of indigenous cooperative traditions (Gilson 2002; Hänggi 2003). Studies along these lines are only at their beginning. They are a promising field of research for two reasons: First, as constructivism claims to be a meta-theory it is also open to realist interpretations and may thus help to overcome the cooperative bias in constructivist theorizing on Southeast Asian regionalism (Rother 2004), and second, by unravelling the cultural connotations of concepts such as power, hierarchy and cooperation it may explain why Southeast Asian regionalism so doggedly defies deepening and remains mired in power politics (Rüland 2006).
When focusing on how language and rhetoric are used to construct the social reality of bilateral relations, the challenge of this research however is to sidestep the pitfalls of essentialism. To be more precise, the individual studies conducted within the constructivist framework of this project must avoid the assumption that the perception of bilateral relations among Khmer, Thai and Vietnamese do not depend on the subjective judgement of individuals but only reflect history and culture. Rather, this project is interested in the changing nature of perceptions and the process of shaping conceptions such as ‘national interest”, ‘sovereignty’ etc.
IV. Methodology
The participants at the 2007 workshop agreed that the project should be grounded on a research design that combines two methodological approaches: First, qualitative empirical research, primarily in the form of detail-rich and thick description, and providing the researchers’ narrative account of the investigation. The second methodological perspective that was considered as appropriate was content analysis. Even though content analysis is currently a very popular research tool in social sciences, the procedural, theoretical and more pragmatic disadvantages of this approach outweigh the advantages. Because this was a major point in the discussion during the first workshop, it is necessary to elaborate the advantages and disadvantages of this research tool in a more detailed way.
Content analysis is a standard methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Harold Lasswell formulated the core questions of content analysis: "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?." Ole Holsti (1969) offers a broad definition of content analysis as "any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages." Content analysis is a research tool used to determine the presence of certain words or concepts within texts or sets of texts. Researchers quantify and analyze the presence, meanings and relationships of such words and concepts, then make inferences about the messages within the texts, the writer(s), the audience, and even the culture and time of which these are a part. Texts can be defined broadly as books, book chapters, essays, interviews, discussions, newspaper headlines and articles, historical documents, speeches, conversations, advertising, theatre, informal conversation, or really any occurrence of communicative language. Texts in a single study may also represent a variety of different types of occurrences (Palmquist 1990)
Perhaps due to the fact that it can be applied to examine any piece of writing or occurrence of recorded communication, content analysis is currently used in a dizzying array of fields, ranging from marketing and media studies, to literature and rhetoric, ethnography and cultural studies, gender and age issues, sociology and political science, psychology and cognitive science, and many other fields of inquiry. Additionally, content analysis reflects a close relationship with socio- and psycholinguistics, and is playing an integral role in the development of artificial intelligence. The following list (adapted from Berelson, 1952) offers more possibilities for the uses of content analysis:
· Reveal international differences in communication content
· Detect the existence of propaganda
· Identify the intentions, focus or communication trends of an individual, group or institution
· Describe attitudinal and behavioral responses to communications
· Determine psychological or emotional state of persons or groups
At a first glance, content analysis seems highly suitable for the aim of this project. However, this is not really the case.
First of all, to conduct a content analysis on any such text, the text is coded or broken down, into manageable categories on a variety of levels--word, word sense, phrase, sentence, or theme--and then examined using one of content analysis' basic methods: conceptual analysis or relational analysis.
Second, conceptual analysis can be thought of as establishing the existence and frequency of concepts – most often represented by words of phrases – in a text. For instance, say you want to analyze the meaning of sovereignty in the Cambodian political discourse. With conceptual analysis you can determine how many times words such as “sovereignty,” “autonomy,” “self-determination,” or “sovereign” appear in official documents, political speeches or political party manifestos. However, the researcher first has to decide which documents or texts he/she wants to analyze; secondly, the research has to find some rules for how to count the usage of the terms, and how any meaningful assumption can be formulated regarding the “relevance” or meaning of the use of that term, the frequency of the usage etc.
In contrast, relational analysis goes one step further by examining the relationships among concepts in a text. Returning to the “sovereignty” example, with relational analysis, you could identify what other words or phrases “sovereignty” or “sovereign” appear next to and then determine what different meanings emerge as a result of these groupings.
Relational analysis, like conceptual analysis, begins with the act of identifying concepts present in a given text or set of texts. However, relational analysis seeks to go beyond presence by exploring the relationships between the concepts identified. Relational analysis has also been termed semantic analysis (Palmquist, Carley, & Dale, 1997). In other words, the focus of relational analysis is to look for semantic, or meaningful, relationships.
Traditionally, content analysis has most often been thought of in terms of conceptual analysis. In conceptual analysis, a concept is chosen for examination, and the analysis involves quantifying and tallying its presence. Also known as thematic analysis, the focus here is on looking at the occurrence of selected terms within a text or texts, although the terms may be implicit as well as explicit. While explicit terms obviously are easy to identify, coding for implicit terms and deciding their level of implication is complicated by the need to base judgments on a somewhat subjective system. To attempt to limit the subjectivity, then (as well as to limit problems of reliability and validity), coding such implicit terms usually involves the use of either a specialized dictionary or contextual translation rules. And sometimes, both tools are used, a trend reflected in recent versions of the Harvard and Lasswell dictionaries.
An example of a conceptual analysis would be to examine several Clinton speeches on health care, made during the 1992 presidential campaign, and code them for the existence of certain words. In looking at these speeches, the research question might involve examining the number of positive words used to describe Clinton's proposed plan, and the number of negative words used to describe the current status of health care in America. The researcher would be interested only in quantifying these words, not in examining how they are related, which is a function of relational analysis. Another example of application of content analysis methods in Political Science dealing with political parties and its impact on electoral systems is Budge et al. 2001. In the context of this project, one could think about using conceptual content analysis to examine Hun Sen speeches on Cambodian-Vietnamese relations or several of Sam Rainsy’s speeches on the border issue, made in the past couple of years, examining the number of pejorative terms used to describe the current status of bilateral relations or the number of positive terms used to describe the Cambodian-Vietnamese border treaty.
Content analysis offers some advantages to researchers who consider using it. In particular, content analysis:
looks directly at communication via texts or transcripts, and hence gets at the central aspect of social interaction
can allow for both quantitative and qualitative operations
can provides valuable historical/cultural insights over time through analysis of texts
allows a closeness to text which can alternate between specific categories and relationships and also statistically analyzes the coded form of the text
can be used to interpret texts for purposes such as the development of expert systems (since knowledge and rules can both be coded in terms of explicit statements about the relationships among concepts)
is an unobtrusive means of analyzing interactions
provides insight into complex models of human thought and language use
On the other hand, content analysis suffers from several disadvantages, both theoretical and procedural. In particular, content analysis:
is extremely time consuming
is subject to increased error, particularly when relational analysis is used to attain a higher level of interpretation
is often devoid of theoretical base, or attempts too liberally to draw meaningful inferences about the relationships and impacts implied in a study
is inherently reductive, particularly when dealing with complex texts
tends too often to simply consist of word counts
often disregards the context that produced the text, as well as the state of things after the text is produced
can be difficult to automate or computerize
In addition, there are the issues of reliability and validity which are concurrent with those addressed in other research methods. The overarching problem of concept analysis research however is the challengeable nature of conclusions reached by its inferential procedures. The question lies in what level of implication is allowable, i.e. do the conclusions follow from the data or are they explainable due to some other phenomenon? For occurrence-specific studies, for example, can the second occurrence of a word carry equal weight as the ninety-ninth? Reasonable conclusions can be drawn from substantive amounts of quantitative data, but the question of proof may still remain unanswered. The generalizability of one's conclusions, then, is very dependent on how one determines concept categories, as well as on how reliable those categories are. It is imperative that one defines categories that accurately measure the idea and/or items one is seeking to measure. Akin to this is the construction of rules. Developing rules that allow one, and others, to categorize and code the same data in the same way over a period of time, referred to as stability, is essential to the success of a conceptual analysis. Reproducibility, not only of specific categories, but of general methods applied to establishing all sets of categories, makes a study, and its subsequent conclusions and results, sounder. A study which does this, i.e. in which the classification of a text corresponds to a standard or norm, is said to have accuracy.
Considering these problems and disadvantages, the difficult research terrain, the limited funding that can be provided by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung for this project, and the fact that twelve months were proposed as the appropriate time frame for the research project, it seems unlikely that methodologically sound content analysis is feasible within the context of this project. Therefore the methodology of this research project should be basically grounded on context-sensitive, qualitative empirical research which provides stock taking, interpretation and sound analysis based on thick descriptions. To the extent possible, the studies should take into account the social, political and cultural construction of mutual perceptions as they are detectable in the textual discourse. Because this project can neither conduct coherent and sound content analysis nor any form of systematic public opinion polling the basis of the research must rest with qualitative research in the form of individual case studies.
V. Provisional Outline
This is of course a tentative discussion of the theoretical, methodological, and thematic aspects of this research project. Needless to say that the preliminary thoughts offered in this outline have to be specified in further discussions. Even though it needs additional refinement it can serve as a starting point for further discussions at the project’s second workshop.
Based on the above suggestions and the discussion at the 2007 workshop, each of the case studies in the project may compromise xx main sections: (1) introduction; (2) review of the historical background; (3) review of the current status; (4) assessment of the perception of the issue among the political elite and the public in each individual country; (5) policy recommendations in order to improve bilateral relations; (6) conclusion.
Structure of Studies
1. Introduction
2. Historical Background (3 pages)
3. Review of the Current Status (5 pages)
4. Perceptions of the issue (8 pages)
5. Recommendations (5 pages)
6. Summary and conclusions concerning the contribution of international actors
While the third section of each study will deal with the questions enumerated under topic “A” in Section III of this paper (stock taking), should the fourth section focus on the questions of topic “B” (perceptions); the fifth section of each paper will discuss the questions put forth under topic “C” (prospects). Even though the complete structure of the studies has yet to be decided, using such a general structure offers the advantage to make the studies comparable, which in turn, is the basis for an intensive dialogue on a national and bilateral level.
Finally, I’d suggest that the provisional outline for the overall project and the final study is as follows:
Project Content
I. Framework
II. Cambodia’s territorial sovereignty: Current Status and future prospects
Cambodian perspectives of territorial disputes in bilateral relations with Thailand and Vietnam
Vietnam’s perspectives of territorial disputes with Cambodia
Thailand’s perspectives of territorial disputes with Cambodia
III. Cambodia’s political authority: Mutual perceptions and empirical findings
Cambodian perspectives: Political authority between domination and cooperation?
Vietnam’s perspectives: From domination to cooperation?
Thailand’s perspectives: From instrumentalization to negligence?
IV. Cambodia’s economic relation: Key issues and current developments
Cambodian perspectives: The need for development vis-à-vis the fear of exploitation
Vietnam’s perspectives: Economic cooperation or economic domination?
Thailand’s perspectives: Economic relations on an equal footing?
V. Comparative Analysis
Comparing mutual perceptions of territorial disputes: Cambodian, Vietnamese and Thai perceptions in perspective
Political authority in a vulnerable and weak state: Cambodian, Vietnamese and Thai perceptions of political cooperation and political self-determination
Economic cooperation and integration: Divergent perceptions of the role of Thailand and Vietnam in Cambodia’s economic development
VI. Prospects and Recommendations
Bibliography & Appendix
Selected References
Follow-up Planning Workshop
17-18 March 2008, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Aurel Croissant
Introduction: The Project
Although it is fruitful to study Cambodian politics from a Cambodian perspective, ‘the country’s location, topography, and demographic weakness have meant that its fate for over two hundred years has been entangled with Thailand and Vietnam’ (Chandler 1996: 242). Historically, Cambodia was caught between regional powers, particularly Vietnam, China, and Thailand. Cambodia’s contemporary relations with her two powerful neighbors are dominated by cooperation and conflict. Cambodia continues to stagger under the weight of a range of fundamental problems that are rooted in the nation's location and history. These problems include its physical vulnerability, the deceptive lure of its history, economic underdevelopment and weakness, and its volatile political culture. At least two of the obstacles to peace and progress in Cambodia--its physical vulnerability and its location between Thailand and Vietnam--are insuperable givens that have affected the country for several hundred years. Cambodia's borders have always made it vulnerable to invasion and accessible to immigrants. Its limited resources can be exploited relatively easily and quickly. Cambodia's geographic vulnerability, along with the small size of its population, heightens its people's sense of insecurity vis-à-vis their neighbors and restricts Cambodian governments to a cautious, even-handed foreign policy.
In this context, the aim of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s project on “Contemporary Cambodia and her neighborhood relations” is to promote dialogue on the existing relations between Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and to facilitate an exchange of opinions on the future development of Cambodian-Thai and Cambodian-Vietnamese relations. The individual studies will serve the purpose of giving an overview on current themes and issues in bilateral relations as well as suggestions for the development of policy recommendations for the further improvement of those relations.
At the center of this project is the notion of ‘sovereignty’. Sovereignty, though its meanings have varied across history, has a core meaning, supreme authority within a territory. In the past, Cambodia’s neighborhood relations had been a continuous struggle of Khmer elites to establish and secure national sovereignty against the dominance of Thailand and Vietnam.
In this context, three thematic issues are relevant: the issue of territorial integrity; the issue of economic empowerment; and the issue of political autonomy. The three issues resonate with different connotations of the notion of sovereignty. Simultaneously, these themes touch on different arenas of bilateral relations: border issues, economic cooperation and political relations.
Because the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung is not only interested in academic research but also in a strong public outreach and policy-relevance of the research, it implies (1) that the project should have an impact on public discussions in the three countries; (2) the findings of the research are therefore supposed to include some form of policy briefs that address academics, public officials, representatives of civil society, and the broader public. The individual studies serve the purpose of giving an overview on empirical facts and societal perceptions of bilateral relations. After analyzing the state of relations within these thematic arenas the project aims to provide input for policy-makers, civil society organizations and the general public to debate promising options for improving the quality of bilateral relations in general.
I. The Background
Since the 1780s, if not earlier, Cambodia has been harassed, dominated, protected, exploited, and undermined by Thai or Vietnamese governments. The involvement of these two countries in Cambodia's affairs intensified in the early nineteenth century as the newly installed dynasties in Bangkok and Hue grew strong, competitive, and ambitious. Had the French not imposed their protection in 1863, Cambodia might have disappeared as an independent state, with its territory divided into Thai and Vietnamese zones of influence. With French intervention, Thai influence diminished. Vietnamese involvement persisted in another guise. France quarantined Cambodia from Siam and tied the country's export economy to that of southern Vietnam. Ethnic Vietnamese had greater access than Cambodians to French-language education and occupied favored positions in the protectorate's civil service. "Indochina," made up of three segments of Vietnam plus Laos and Cambodia, was a French concoction dominated by its Vietnamese components.
Cambodia’s position in the middle of Southeast Asia during the volatile 1960s and 1970s forced questions of national sovereignty to the fore. Thus, historically Cambodia has felt politically and territorially pressed between Thailand and Vietnam. Moreover, the main cultural divide running through ‘Indochina’ is that which divides mainland Southeast Asia between the ‘Indianized’ states of Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and the ‘Sinicized’ Vietnam. This cultural divide may explain why the attitude of the Khmer towards the Vietnamese is significantly different form that towards the Thai. Although there are border controversies, problems of economic dominance and a tendency among Thailand’s political elite to disregard political sensitivities in Phnom Penh, which burden bilateral relationship, it is the Vietnamese who are regarded by the majority of the Khmer as intruders, whose presence in the country many perceive as a threat to the ‘Khmer-ness’ of the nation. Although the Vietnamese do not form one coherent ethnic community, the Khmer nationalist elite (including western-hailed opposition) who pursue anti-Vietnamese propaganda since independence, have tended to ignore this fact, and little allowance has been made for the diversity of Vietnamese communities within the ethnic category ‘Vietnamese’.[1]
Consequently, since independence, the Cambodian governments and the Khmer educated elite have always regarded Vietnam and the Vietnamese as the main threat to Cambodian, political, economic and territorial sovereignty. For example, many Khmer consider the Mekong Delta as kompuchea krom, a Cambodian territory unlawfully annexed by Vietnam. Even after the nation regained sovereignty at the end of the United Nations Transitional Authority in 1993, time and again, Khmer pointed to immigration by Vietnamese rice farming population along border provinces of Prey Veng and Svay Rieng. Accordingly, the Vietnamese government is accused by many Khmer academics, social activists and politicians to have ‘encroached’ Cambodia’s territorial integrity in search of land. Vietnamese expansionism is a recurrent theme in propaganda of opposition parties, as is the economic ‘sold out’ of Cambodia’s natural resources to Vietnamese investors (including the military). Political opponents of the Cambodian government under Prime Minister Hun Sen are and portraying it as a “puppet regime” of Hanoi. More extreme voices accuse Hanoi to employ a policy of forced ‘Vietnamization’ of Cambodia since the 1980s, nibbling away at Cambodia by annexing sizable portions of its borders, coastlines and islands, and exploiting natural resources located at the northeastern provinces in Cambodia through measures to promote the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia triangle of development.
While the Khmer perception is dominated by a strong sense of political, military and economic vulnerability, the Vietnamese perspective is dominated by geopolitical security concerns and interest in economic exchange. Vietnam's once far-reaching political interests in Cambodia seem to have faded along with any dreams the Vietnamese may have had of a socialist grouping of Indochinese states. Vietnam now seems more interested in becoming a good citizen of Southeast Asia. At the same time, however, Vietnamese exploitation of resources in eastern Cambodia and immigration into the country will probably maintain present levels or increase. In the process, ethnic tensions are bound to erupt, intensified by demographic pressures and fanned by irresponsible politicians.
According to the Thai government’s official rhetoric, economic cooperation and exchange between Thailand and Cambodia is for the mutual benefit of both nations. While most informed people in Bangkok agree that there is a considerable extent of corruption and illegal activities involved in Thai investments along the Thai-Cambodian border, the general view among Thailand’s economic and political elite is that Thai activities are meant to create a new ‘economic partnership’ between both countries. In reality, however, the general attitude within the Thai public and the policy community towards Cambodia is less strongly in favor of an ‘equal status’ of the two countries. For example, the standard text books on Thai history, at both school and university levels, usually begin with the migration of the Thai ‘race’ from the North to the Chaophraya River basin, where the Khmer had earlier settled. The rapid expansion of the Thai kingdom finally brought down the Angkorean Empire. Moreover, Thai popular history books often describe Cambodia as a subordinate, untrustworthy neighbor, many times shifting its loyalty between the Thai and the Vietnamese courts. Cambodia sought to attack Siam whenever the Thai kingdom was facing trouble. The classic case with which the Thais have been familiar was the execution of Cambodian King Lovek by the Ayudhyan King Naresuan. The Thai version of the King Lovek story still dominates the general understanding of Thai-Cambodian relations among many Thais. The wars and chaos in Cambodia between 1970 and the 1990s have always been described as the fault of Cambodians, while the Thai policy of backing various warring factions inside Cambodia is interpreted as based on rights to secure legitimate Thai interests or to prevent Cambodia from ‘Vietnamization’.
Such historiography has enhanced a nationalistic feeling of a great nation with a great history in comparison to its neighboring countries. On the other hand, it has depicted Cambodia as an inferior nation. Perhaps, the perception of Cambodia as a poor, inferior country with little business potential still is widely shared among Thais. In general one may believe that the ‘Thai government, elite and academic specialists, know and care very little of/about Khmer economy, politics, society and culture. Thus, many foreign observers believe that nationalistic attitudes and ignorance is an obstacle for Thailand to develop a constructive policy towards Cambodia.
Needless to say that the historical relations between Cambodia and her neighbors will neither determine Cambodia's future nor the future course of her bilateral relations. But there are after effects. First of all many Cambodians believe that Vietnam poses a greater threat to Cambodia than Thailand and suggest that while Thai exploitation is more or less only a case of short-term economic interests the Vietnamese agenda is deeper and more devious. Second, military threats to Cambodian sovereignty have diminished but Cambodia will never be militarily strong enough or populous enough to withstand pressures from Vietnamese immigrants and foreign entrepreneurs. In the process, its resources will be wantonly depleted. Third, there is a latent potential for an escalation of rhetoric and a sudden outbreak of violence between Thailand and Cambodia. In this context, the burning of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh in 2003 is indicative. While conciliatory moves by both sides and unconditional offers of compensation from the Cambodian government indicate robustness of the relationship, the incidence clearly demonstrated how Cambodia’s internal politics can strain its relations with Thailand (and Vietnam).
In this context, a first workshop organized by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and her Cambodian partner organizations was held in September 2007. The workshop identified three thematic issues that are related to Cambodia’s search for national sovereignty and which were regarded as most appropriate for further research: territorial integrity, political autonomy and economic empowerment of Cambodia.
II. The notion of sovereignty and Cambodia’s search for sovereignty
The aim of this project is to analyze Cambodia’s bilateral relations with Thailand and Vietnam through the conceptual lens of sovereignty. Thus, the conceptual core of the project is the concept of sovereignty. In terms of sovereignty, many academics agree that the sovereignty of state in pre-modern Southeast Asia was neither single nor exclusive. Instead of establishing an independent state as a buffer zone, for example, the overlords shared sovereignty over the buffer zones. Hence, not only had Siam, Cambodia and Vietnam never been bound by the modern kind of boundary the Western colonial powers had in mind when the begun mapping the region and drawing borders to mark their colonial possessions, but these kingdoms were also surrounded by common frontiers, border areas of shared sovereignty.
The countries of Southeast Asia provide an especially illuminating space within which to examine the continuing theoretical relevance and empirical significance of sovereignty. Even a cursory historical survey of the region demonstrates that not only is the idea of sovereignty a relatively recent innovation in Southeast Asia and a product of the decolonization process, but that it has assumed a distinctive form. Initially, at least, sovereignty was a mechanism for structuring the international relations between core and periphery and thus a central component of colonial domination. Strang (1996: 25) argues that non-Western forms of sovereignty were effectively de-legitimated by the colonial powers, forcing the incorporation of vast areas of the world into an international political and economic order that was dominated by, and primarily run for the benefit of, a handful of imperial powers. Yet despite this rather brutal introduction into an emergent global system, the nations of Southeast Asia have generally taken to the idea of sovereignty with alacrity.
The history of sovereignty can be understood through two broad movements, manifested in both practical institutions and political thought. The first is the development of a system of sovereign states, culminating at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporaneously, sovereignty became prominent in political thought through the writings of Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes. The second movement is the circumscription of the sovereign state, which began in practice after World War II and has since continued through European integration and the growth and strengthening of laws and practices to protect human rights.
Sovereignty is a signature feature of modern politics; some scholars, however, have doubted whether a stable, essential notion of sovereignty exists. In fact, there is a definition that captures what sovereignty came to mean in early modern Europe and of which most subsequent definitions are a variant: supreme authority within a territory. Historical manifestations of sovereignty are almost always specific instances of this general definition.
Sovereignty as supreme authority within a territory describes a modern notion of political authority. Historical variants can be understood along three dimensions -- the holder of sovereignty, the absoluteness of sovereignty, and the internal and external dimensions of sovereignty. The state is the political institution in which sovereignty is embodied.
Each component of this definition highlights an important aspect of the concept. First, a holder of sovereignty possesses authority. That is to say, the person or entity does not merely wield coercive power, defined as A’s ability to cause B to do what he would otherwise not do. Authority is rather what philosopher R.P. Wolff proposed: “the right to command and correlatively the right to be obeyed.”[1] What is most important here is the term “right,” connoting legitimacy. A holder of sovereignty derives authority from some mutually acknowledged source of legitimacy. In the contemporary era, some body of law is ubiquitously the source of sovereignty. In the more recent political history of Cambodia, the source of sovereignty always has been contested among Khmer factions – factions, which usually were supported by the Vietnamese or Thai government. Second, sovereign authority is exercised within borders (internal sovereignty), but also, by definition, with respect to outsiders, who may not interfere with the sovereign’s governance. External sovereignty means a state’s freedom from outside influence upon its basic prerogatives. It depends on recognition by outsiders. To states, this recognition is what a no-trespassing law is to private property -- a set of mutual understandings that give property, or the state, immunity from outside interference.
Needless to say that the system of nation states is characterized by major disparities in the capacities of states; for some of the smaller European states, for example, sovereignty is juridical rather than empirical. In other words, some states are creations of, and dependent on, the inter-state system itself for their continuity, legitimacy and status as sovereign entities. In this context, the highly circumscribed realization of state power and authority in Cambodia, for example, reveals noteworthy deviations from the ideal-type of juridical state authority, and has led some observers to describe Cambodia as enjoying ‘partial’, rather than complete sovereignty.
Nonetheless, the notion of sovereignty may serve as a useful broad-brush indicator of what an independent nation might look like or aspire to be. However, we have to keep in mind that, despite Southeast Asia’s notable enthusiasm for the concept, the notion of sovereignty remains problematic. And yet because many of the states of Southeast Asia have been and remain ‘weak’, lacking in ‘infrastructural capacity’ (Michael Mann) and with a compromised and dependent form of sovereignty at best, they have been keen to defend ‘their’ sovereignty. Importantly, the purposes to which state power were put, and the manner in which it was consolidated, were not timeless expressions of some essential and ubiquitous sovereign imperative, but contingent reflections of Southeast Asia’s unique geo-political position. Sovereignty, in other words, even where it remains a meaningful indicator of state capacity and independence, is not only variable in degree, it is also constructed and constituted in highly distinctive ways that reflect ideational as well as material factors.
It seems fair to say that Cambodia is not unique among Southeast Asian nations or developing countries. Even one of the most eloquent defenders of the continuing theoretical and pragmatic importance of sovereignty, Stephen Krasner, acknowledges that sovereignty has never been either complete or unchallenged. Moreover, the control of territory and population, which classically was the basis of sovereignty, is eroding in many regions of the world as a consequence of the trans-national flows of capital, labor, products, and ideas (i.e. ‘globalization’). Sovereignty in Southeast Asia has always been precarious, imperfectly realised, and the product of that region’s often troubled relationship with ‘the West’. Rather what is exceptional in the case of Cambodia is (1) the degree of limitations or restrictions on sovereignty; (2) the fact that the limitation (or even violation) of Cambodian sovereignty is not a recent phenomenon but a historically constant factor; (3) the frequency and intensity with which Cambodia’s neighbors time and again have exploited the weaknesses of the Cambodian state to erode its sovereignty for the pursuit of realizing own interests, whereby the Khmers’ sense of vulnerability was intensified. While sovereignty is never complete or unchallenged, the capacity of the Cambodian state to act decisively was and still is particularly constrained.
III. The Conceptual and Analytical Framework
The project is looking at ways and means by which Cambodia’s neigbhorhood relations can better meet the needs and aspirations of all involved nations. As an outcome of the previous planning workshop in September 2007, three thematic aspects or issues of contemporary Cambodia’s search for sovereignty have been identified as relevant. The particular focus of the study is on these three central themes:
1. the issue of territorial integrity that is control of the Cambodian state over its geographical and national borders;
2. the issue of economic sovereignty or ‘self-determination’, understood as the Cambodian state’s control over its nation’s own economic resources;
3. the issue of political autonomy, that is, the Cambodian state’s right to command and correlatively the right to be obeyed without undue intervention from or interference by the governments of neighboring countries.
Obviously, those three issues resonate with different connotations of the notion of sovereignty. Simultaneously, these themes touch on the most relevant arenas of contemporary bilateral relations–border issues, economic cooperation and political relations.
The following preliminary set of questions may serve as a basis for further research and discussion. The first set of three questions deals with the “factual’ situation as it can be evaluated from the ‘objective’ data and empirical information that is at hand. The second set of questions focuses on the perception of the individual issue among the public and the elites in the three countries. The third set of questions address the aspect of improving mutual understanding and the quality of relations between Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
A. Stock taking of current relations:
- What is the status of bilateral relations in terms of border issues, that is, what are the ‘factual’ issue problems?
- What is the status of bilateral relations in terms of economic exchange, that is, what are the ‘factual’ issues problems?
- What is the status of bilateral relations in terms of political cooperation and conflict, that is, what are the ‘factual’ issue problems?
B. Perceptions of current relations:
- What is or what are the perceptions regarding border issues in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam?
- What is or what are the perceptions regarding economic cooperation between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in each country?
- What is or what are the perceptions regarding political cooperation in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam?
More specifically, the project is interested in developing a better understanding of the relevance of the individual issue among policy-makers and the general public, factors which shape those perceptions as well as the agents and medium or media through which these perceptions are formed and communicated.
C. Prospects for improving current relations
After having presented the findings of the analysis, each study should provide tentative conclusions and policy recommendations in order to address the following three questions:
- How can bilateral relations in terms of economic cooperation, political cooperation and the non-violent management of border issues be improved and by whom?
- What can be done to enhance the awareness among policy-makers and civil society leaders in the three nations for public perceptions of bilateral issues in their neighbour country?
- What is the role of external actors such as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in improving the quality of bilateral relations, influencing public perceptions and public opinion inside Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam? To be more precise, how can Friedrich Ebert Stiftung achieve the underlying aim of this project—contributing to mutual understanding and the development of sustainable solutions to the problems of cooperation between Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam?
Thus, this project deals with the question of how economic and political relations between these countries within the context of Cambodia’s historical vulnerability and insecurity have evolved since 1993, what the critical problems of bilateral relations are and what the perceptions on issues included in the study are in each of the three nations. These questions will be discussed primarily on an empirical level. For the purpose of producing sound statements about Thai-Khmer and Vietnamese-Khmer relations from which recommendations for further improvement of these relationships can be derived, the study is grounded on a research design that combines different methodological perspectives.
Needless to say, several factors influence the current state of relations Cambodian-Thai-Vietnamese in terms of territorial disputes, economic relations and political cooperation. Structural factors affect the capacity of individual governments to adequately represent national interests. Institutional factors play an important role in the formulation of national interests. Culture and historical experiences influence how individuals, social groups and political elites perceive relations. However, one has to keep in mind that the definition of national interests, the perception of cultural differences, and historical experiences are always socially constructed. While structural factors influence the capacity of governments and societies to formulate their interests and satisfy their needs, and institutional factors affect processes of the formulation of interests and decision-making, socially constructed perceptions is one, if not the most crucial, factor in determining the long term prospects for bilateral relations between different nations and societies.
Thus, constructivism forms a core theoretical component in the framework used for analyzing trilateral relations between Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand is constructivism. Constructivism is perhaps most closely associated with Alexander Wendt (1992), as he has applied the ideas of social constructionism to the field of international relations. Wendt laid the theoretical groundwork for challenging what he considered to be a flaw shared by both neorealists and neoliberal institutionalists, namely, a commitment to a (crude) form of materialism. By attempting to show that even such a core realist concept as "power politics" is socially constructed—-that is, not given by nature and hence, capable of being transformed by human practice--Wendt opened the way for a generation of international relations scholars to pursue work in a wide range of issues from a constructivist perspective.
Constructivism and the “cultural turn in social sciences” (Reckwitz 2000) had reached studies of Southeast Asia in the 1990s. “Weak” cognitivist approaches subsequently became the theoretical vanguard in explaining Southeast Asian regionalism (Rüland 2006). Social constructivism questions the rationalist epistemological foundations of realist and institutionalist approaches and rejects the latters’ notion that there are given national interests that, if at all, change little over time and space. Cognitivist approaches insist that state interests are socially constructed and hence prone to change and that, accordingly, the observed processes of norm building in the region shape a common regional identity. Cognitivists thus further posit that common interests are not derived from shared material interests but the conscious fostering of shared values and norms.
Cognitivism has facilitated interesting and innovative research on “cultures of cooperation” (Rüland 2002; Loewen 2005) The latter are seen as being formed in a process of interaction with other regions (“regionalism through interregionalism”), which sharpens differences between self and other and, as a corollary, drives the resuscitation of indigenous cooperative traditions (Gilson 2002; Hänggi 2003). Studies along these lines are only at their beginning. They are a promising field of research for two reasons: First, as constructivism claims to be a meta-theory it is also open to realist interpretations and may thus help to overcome the cooperative bias in constructivist theorizing on Southeast Asian regionalism (Rother 2004), and second, by unravelling the cultural connotations of concepts such as power, hierarchy and cooperation it may explain why Southeast Asian regionalism so doggedly defies deepening and remains mired in power politics (Rüland 2006).
When focusing on how language and rhetoric are used to construct the social reality of bilateral relations, the challenge of this research however is to sidestep the pitfalls of essentialism. To be more precise, the individual studies conducted within the constructivist framework of this project must avoid the assumption that the perception of bilateral relations among Khmer, Thai and Vietnamese do not depend on the subjective judgement of individuals but only reflect history and culture. Rather, this project is interested in the changing nature of perceptions and the process of shaping conceptions such as ‘national interest”, ‘sovereignty’ etc.
IV. Methodology
The participants at the 2007 workshop agreed that the project should be grounded on a research design that combines two methodological approaches: First, qualitative empirical research, primarily in the form of detail-rich and thick description, and providing the researchers’ narrative account of the investigation. The second methodological perspective that was considered as appropriate was content analysis. Even though content analysis is currently a very popular research tool in social sciences, the procedural, theoretical and more pragmatic disadvantages of this approach outweigh the advantages. Because this was a major point in the discussion during the first workshop, it is necessary to elaborate the advantages and disadvantages of this research tool in a more detailed way.
Content analysis is a standard methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Harold Lasswell formulated the core questions of content analysis: "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?." Ole Holsti (1969) offers a broad definition of content analysis as "any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages." Content analysis is a research tool used to determine the presence of certain words or concepts within texts or sets of texts. Researchers quantify and analyze the presence, meanings and relationships of such words and concepts, then make inferences about the messages within the texts, the writer(s), the audience, and even the culture and time of which these are a part. Texts can be defined broadly as books, book chapters, essays, interviews, discussions, newspaper headlines and articles, historical documents, speeches, conversations, advertising, theatre, informal conversation, or really any occurrence of communicative language. Texts in a single study may also represent a variety of different types of occurrences (Palmquist 1990)
Perhaps due to the fact that it can be applied to examine any piece of writing or occurrence of recorded communication, content analysis is currently used in a dizzying array of fields, ranging from marketing and media studies, to literature and rhetoric, ethnography and cultural studies, gender and age issues, sociology and political science, psychology and cognitive science, and many other fields of inquiry. Additionally, content analysis reflects a close relationship with socio- and psycholinguistics, and is playing an integral role in the development of artificial intelligence. The following list (adapted from Berelson, 1952) offers more possibilities for the uses of content analysis:
· Reveal international differences in communication content
· Detect the existence of propaganda
· Identify the intentions, focus or communication trends of an individual, group or institution
· Describe attitudinal and behavioral responses to communications
· Determine psychological or emotional state of persons or groups
At a first glance, content analysis seems highly suitable for the aim of this project. However, this is not really the case.
First of all, to conduct a content analysis on any such text, the text is coded or broken down, into manageable categories on a variety of levels--word, word sense, phrase, sentence, or theme--and then examined using one of content analysis' basic methods: conceptual analysis or relational analysis.
Second, conceptual analysis can be thought of as establishing the existence and frequency of concepts – most often represented by words of phrases – in a text. For instance, say you want to analyze the meaning of sovereignty in the Cambodian political discourse. With conceptual analysis you can determine how many times words such as “sovereignty,” “autonomy,” “self-determination,” or “sovereign” appear in official documents, political speeches or political party manifestos. However, the researcher first has to decide which documents or texts he/she wants to analyze; secondly, the research has to find some rules for how to count the usage of the terms, and how any meaningful assumption can be formulated regarding the “relevance” or meaning of the use of that term, the frequency of the usage etc.
In contrast, relational analysis goes one step further by examining the relationships among concepts in a text. Returning to the “sovereignty” example, with relational analysis, you could identify what other words or phrases “sovereignty” or “sovereign” appear next to and then determine what different meanings emerge as a result of these groupings.
Relational analysis, like conceptual analysis, begins with the act of identifying concepts present in a given text or set of texts. However, relational analysis seeks to go beyond presence by exploring the relationships between the concepts identified. Relational analysis has also been termed semantic analysis (Palmquist, Carley, & Dale, 1997). In other words, the focus of relational analysis is to look for semantic, or meaningful, relationships.
Traditionally, content analysis has most often been thought of in terms of conceptual analysis. In conceptual analysis, a concept is chosen for examination, and the analysis involves quantifying and tallying its presence. Also known as thematic analysis, the focus here is on looking at the occurrence of selected terms within a text or texts, although the terms may be implicit as well as explicit. While explicit terms obviously are easy to identify, coding for implicit terms and deciding their level of implication is complicated by the need to base judgments on a somewhat subjective system. To attempt to limit the subjectivity, then (as well as to limit problems of reliability and validity), coding such implicit terms usually involves the use of either a specialized dictionary or contextual translation rules. And sometimes, both tools are used, a trend reflected in recent versions of the Harvard and Lasswell dictionaries.
An example of a conceptual analysis would be to examine several Clinton speeches on health care, made during the 1992 presidential campaign, and code them for the existence of certain words. In looking at these speeches, the research question might involve examining the number of positive words used to describe Clinton's proposed plan, and the number of negative words used to describe the current status of health care in America. The researcher would be interested only in quantifying these words, not in examining how they are related, which is a function of relational analysis. Another example of application of content analysis methods in Political Science dealing with political parties and its impact on electoral systems is Budge et al. 2001. In the context of this project, one could think about using conceptual content analysis to examine Hun Sen speeches on Cambodian-Vietnamese relations or several of Sam Rainsy’s speeches on the border issue, made in the past couple of years, examining the number of pejorative terms used to describe the current status of bilateral relations or the number of positive terms used to describe the Cambodian-Vietnamese border treaty.
Content analysis offers some advantages to researchers who consider using it. In particular, content analysis:
looks directly at communication via texts or transcripts, and hence gets at the central aspect of social interaction
can allow for both quantitative and qualitative operations
can provides valuable historical/cultural insights over time through analysis of texts
allows a closeness to text which can alternate between specific categories and relationships and also statistically analyzes the coded form of the text
can be used to interpret texts for purposes such as the development of expert systems (since knowledge and rules can both be coded in terms of explicit statements about the relationships among concepts)
is an unobtrusive means of analyzing interactions
provides insight into complex models of human thought and language use
On the other hand, content analysis suffers from several disadvantages, both theoretical and procedural. In particular, content analysis:
is extremely time consuming
is subject to increased error, particularly when relational analysis is used to attain a higher level of interpretation
is often devoid of theoretical base, or attempts too liberally to draw meaningful inferences about the relationships and impacts implied in a study
is inherently reductive, particularly when dealing with complex texts
tends too often to simply consist of word counts
often disregards the context that produced the text, as well as the state of things after the text is produced
can be difficult to automate or computerize
In addition, there are the issues of reliability and validity which are concurrent with those addressed in other research methods. The overarching problem of concept analysis research however is the challengeable nature of conclusions reached by its inferential procedures. The question lies in what level of implication is allowable, i.e. do the conclusions follow from the data or are they explainable due to some other phenomenon? For occurrence-specific studies, for example, can the second occurrence of a word carry equal weight as the ninety-ninth? Reasonable conclusions can be drawn from substantive amounts of quantitative data, but the question of proof may still remain unanswered. The generalizability of one's conclusions, then, is very dependent on how one determines concept categories, as well as on how reliable those categories are. It is imperative that one defines categories that accurately measure the idea and/or items one is seeking to measure. Akin to this is the construction of rules. Developing rules that allow one, and others, to categorize and code the same data in the same way over a period of time, referred to as stability, is essential to the success of a conceptual analysis. Reproducibility, not only of specific categories, but of general methods applied to establishing all sets of categories, makes a study, and its subsequent conclusions and results, sounder. A study which does this, i.e. in which the classification of a text corresponds to a standard or norm, is said to have accuracy.
Considering these problems and disadvantages, the difficult research terrain, the limited funding that can be provided by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung for this project, and the fact that twelve months were proposed as the appropriate time frame for the research project, it seems unlikely that methodologically sound content analysis is feasible within the context of this project. Therefore the methodology of this research project should be basically grounded on context-sensitive, qualitative empirical research which provides stock taking, interpretation and sound analysis based on thick descriptions. To the extent possible, the studies should take into account the social, political and cultural construction of mutual perceptions as they are detectable in the textual discourse. Because this project can neither conduct coherent and sound content analysis nor any form of systematic public opinion polling the basis of the research must rest with qualitative research in the form of individual case studies.
V. Provisional Outline
This is of course a tentative discussion of the theoretical, methodological, and thematic aspects of this research project. Needless to say that the preliminary thoughts offered in this outline have to be specified in further discussions. Even though it needs additional refinement it can serve as a starting point for further discussions at the project’s second workshop.
Based on the above suggestions and the discussion at the 2007 workshop, each of the case studies in the project may compromise xx main sections: (1) introduction; (2) review of the historical background; (3) review of the current status; (4) assessment of the perception of the issue among the political elite and the public in each individual country; (5) policy recommendations in order to improve bilateral relations; (6) conclusion.
Structure of Studies
1. Introduction
2. Historical Background (3 pages)
3. Review of the Current Status (5 pages)
4. Perceptions of the issue (8 pages)
5. Recommendations (5 pages)
6. Summary and conclusions concerning the contribution of international actors
While the third section of each study will deal with the questions enumerated under topic “A” in Section III of this paper (stock taking), should the fourth section focus on the questions of topic “B” (perceptions); the fifth section of each paper will discuss the questions put forth under topic “C” (prospects). Even though the complete structure of the studies has yet to be decided, using such a general structure offers the advantage to make the studies comparable, which in turn, is the basis for an intensive dialogue on a national and bilateral level.
Finally, I’d suggest that the provisional outline for the overall project and the final study is as follows:
Project Content
I. Framework
II. Cambodia’s territorial sovereignty: Current Status and future prospects
Cambodian perspectives of territorial disputes in bilateral relations with Thailand and Vietnam
Vietnam’s perspectives of territorial disputes with Cambodia
Thailand’s perspectives of territorial disputes with Cambodia
III. Cambodia’s political authority: Mutual perceptions and empirical findings
Cambodian perspectives: Political authority between domination and cooperation?
Vietnam’s perspectives: From domination to cooperation?
Thailand’s perspectives: From instrumentalization to negligence?
IV. Cambodia’s economic relation: Key issues and current developments
Cambodian perspectives: The need for development vis-à-vis the fear of exploitation
Vietnam’s perspectives: Economic cooperation or economic domination?
Thailand’s perspectives: Economic relations on an equal footing?
V. Comparative Analysis
Comparing mutual perceptions of territorial disputes: Cambodian, Vietnamese and Thai perceptions in perspective
Political authority in a vulnerable and weak state: Cambodian, Vietnamese and Thai perceptions of political cooperation and political self-determination
Economic cooperation and integration: Divergent perceptions of the role of Thailand and Vietnam in Cambodia’s economic development
VI. Prospects and Recommendations
Bibliography & Appendix
Selected References
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Rother, Stefan: Normen, Identitäten und die Logik der Anarchie: Die ASEAN aus konstruktivistischer Perspektive. Freiburg: Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institut, 2004.
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Krasner, Stephen D.: Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
C handler, David: The Tragedy of Cambodian History, Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.
Holsti, O.R.: Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969.
Carley, Kathleen: Coding Choices for Textual Analysis: A Comparison of Content Analysis and Map Analysis, Sociological Methodology, 1993, 75-126.
Berelson, Bernard. Content Analysis in Communication Research. New York: Free Press, 1952.
Palmquist, M. E., Carley, K.M., and Dale, T.A.: Two applications of automated text analysis: Analyzing literary and non-literary texts. In C. Roberts (Ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences: Methods for Drawing Statistical Inferences from Texts and Tanscripts. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997
Palmquist, M. E.: The lexicon of the classroom: language and learning in writing class rooms. Doctoral dissertation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA., 1990.
Budge, Ian, Klingemann, Hans-Dieter et al.: Mapping Policy Preferences. Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments 1945-1998. Oxford 2001: Oxford University Press.
[1] Consequently, all members of this category have been victims of violent persecutions in recent Cambodian history. For example, at least four Vietnamese were killed by a mob in September 1998 because of a rumor that a Vietnamese had added poison to drinks.
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