Power and Political Culture in Cambodia

ABSTRACTED FROM THE OPENING PARAGRAPHS: In this paper we examine the Cambodian conception of power in order to shed light on the nature and functioning of Khmer political culture. This is not to make the point that the Cambodian language has a number of words for different aspects of power (as does English), but rather to explicate how Cambodians understand the personal basis of social power, how social power obligates individuals, and how this understanding translates into political power through the influence it has on individual (and group) behaviour towards holders of power. We set this understanding of power within the context of an evolutionary account of cultural change, and show how it facilitates the persistence of core elements of the patrimonialism that lies at the heart of Khmer politics. We begin, however, by backgrounding the events to be explained.