Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge : inside the politics of nation building / Evan Gottesman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gottesman, Evan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cambodia--Politics and government--1979-1993.

Cambodia.

Politics and government.

Cambodia--Politics and government--1975-1979.

Physical Description:

xxv, 428 pages, 10 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2003]

Summary:

When the Vietnamese army overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Cambodia was a political and economic wasteland. It had no government, no functioning economy, and no cultural institutions. Its population was decimated, its educated class nearly eliminated. For the next twelve years, Cambodia struggled to emerge from this chaos, despite a Western diplomatic and economic embargo, a Vietnamese occupation, and a civil conflict fueled by the Cold War. The first account of this turbulent era, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, tells how the turmoil gave shape to a nation. Drawing on previously unexplored archival sources, interviews, and secondary materials, Evan Gottesman recounts how a handful of former Khmer Rouge soldiers and officials, Vietnamese-trained revolutionary cadres, and surviving intellectuals simultaneously jostled for power and debated fundamental policy questions. Gottesman describes the formation of a Vietnamese-backed regime and its attempts to co-opt the Khmer Rouge, the relationship between the Cambodians and their Vietnamese advisors, the treatment of the ethnic Chinese, and the constant tension between patronage politics and communist ideology. He not only tracks how the current leadership rose to power in the 1980s but explains how the legacy of this period influences events in Cambodia to this day.

Contents:

Part 1 Beginnings

1 Liberation 3

2 Turning Waters: The Patterns and Myths of Cambodian History 12

Part 2 The Second Revolution, 1979-1981

3 Blood Debts: Transition and Continuity Under a New Regime 37

4 The Birth of an Economy 79

5 Comrades and Traitors: Political Intrigue in the Shadow of Occupation 102

Part 3 Battlefields, 1982-1987

6 The Vietnamese: Soldiers, Advisors, and "Bad Elements" 137

7 The Chinese: Racial Politics in the PRK 170

8 Cities and Markets 188

9 Hun Sen and the Hidden World of Phnom Penh Politics 205

10 Wartime: Conscription, Profiteering, and K5 223

11 Law, Human Rights, and the Case of the Yens 238

Part 4 Adjusting to History, 1988-1991

12 The Politics of Economic Reform 271

13 The End of the Occupation 301

14 Buying Power: Privatization, Corruption, and Patronage 316

15 The Throes of Peace 336.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-409) and index.

ISBN:

0300089570

OCLC:

49576455