Peace, Power and Resistance in Cambodia

Do the ongoing dynamics of economic globalization also entail, and indeed require, the globalization of a particular model of peace? This book, as it considers this question, brings to light the degree to which the mechanisms of global governance emerging in counterpoint to economic globalization rest on the imposition of specific models of conflict resolution in long-standing conflicts in peripheral regions. The peacebuilding project at the heart of these efforts thus often lacks clear connection with the political and institutional configurations at the basis of these conflicts, and, for this reason, frequently ends in failure. The prime example of the broad international peace operations mounted in the post-Cold War era, the United Nations intervention in Cambodia in 1991-3, is used here to study these issues. This book also establishes parallels between the actions of the international community during that period and its more recent involvement in the Cambodian elections of July 1998 to emphasize how the global discourse of conflict resolution actually impedes the movement towards peace in situations such as the Cambodian one.