Good Gifts, Bad Gifts, and Rights: Cambodian Popular Perceptions and the 2013 Elections

In the Cambodian national elections in 2013, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) experienced a strong surge in support, finishing a close second to the long-incumbent Cambodian People's Party (CPP). Whilst the CNRP campaigned on an anti-money politics, rights-based agenda, the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pacific affairs 2016-12, Vol.89 (4), p.795-815
Main Author: Norén-Nilsson, Astrid
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Cambodia
Citizenship
Civil rights
Civil service
Clientelism
Democracy
Demonstrations & protests
Election results
Elections
Farmers
Gifts
Hun Sen
Interviews
Legitimacy
Methods
Military police
Mobilization
Money
Neo-Patrimonialism
Patronage
Patronage Politics
Patronage, Political
Political aspects
Political parties
Political Science
Politics
Power
Public opinion
Qualitative research
Rights
Rural areas
Samhällsvetenskap
Social Sciences
Statsvetenskap
Towns
Vote Buying
Voters
Voting
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Summary:In the Cambodian national elections in 2013, the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) experienced a strong surge in support, finishing a close second to the long-incumbent Cambodian People's Party (CPP). Whilst the CNRP campaigned on an anti-money politics, rights-based agenda, the CPP has relied on gift-giving practices to maintain links with voters. This article explores changing popular conceptions of provision to assess to what extent a democratic, rights-based conscience in Cambodia has emerged under the current neo-patrimonial regime. Building on qualitative interviews with 192 voters in post-election Cambodia, it finds that gift-giving practices play a different role than current academic theorizations of popular politics, and Cambodian popular politics in particular, would lead us to expect. Ordinary Cambodians are found to make a distinction between contingent and non-contingent exchanges in electoral mobilization, rejecting the former and embracing the latter. CPP gift giving in its current guise is consequently devoid of popular legitimacy across the political camps. At the same time, the idea of meritorious gift giving lives on as an ideal, especially among CNRP supporters.
ISSN:0030-851X
1715-3379
0030-851X
DOI:10.5509/2016894795