A Mixed Legacy: The United Nations Intervention In Cambodia

The Paris Peace Agreement (PPA), reached by Cambodian warring factions and their foreign patrons in 1991, mandated the United Nations to end the country's protracted conflict, rebuild the economy, and institute a liberal democracy in Cambodia. During the implementation period, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) helped organize multi-party elections, draft a liberal constitution, and promote free market economics. This essay explores the legacies of international intervention for economic and political development in Cambodia, arguing that the outcomes have been mixed. Economically, Cambodia has experienced sustained growth within the context of crony capitalism. Politically, it has moved through varying degrees of authoritarianism and apparently landed in 2019 in a zone of dominant party electoral authoritarianism where multi-party elections occur, but electoral processes have not been free and fair and civil and political freedoms have been curtailed. Given that diverse domestic- and international-level political processes have played out over the 25 years since the UNTAC mission ended, it is difficult to isolate the long-term impact that the UN's actions have had in terms of shaping outcomes observed today. That said, it is possible to identify certain key decisions that were adopted during the period of UN intervention and then trace their path dependent effects through to a set of intended and unintended current outcomes. It should be noted, however, that while some outcomes can be directly tied to UNTAC actions, other outcomes are related to global geo-political shifts and domestic socio-economic changes that either undermined or reinforced UNTAC's legacy.