International Democracy Assistance for Peacebuilding The Cambodian Experience

This book seeks to explain why international donors may succeed in putting war-torn countries on the path of democratic transition and negative peace, but fail to consolidate the gains they make. Cambodia provides an excellent example for international peace builders: the donor community spent billions of dollars rebuilding the country between 1992 and 2006, but democracy remains unconsolidated and may even be receding towards "electoral dictatorship." Critical of neo-institutionalism, but sympathetic to historical and normative institutionalism, this book advances a theory called "complex realist institutionalism" to explain the limits of international democracy assistance to post-war societies.

SORPONG PEOU is Professor of International Security at Sophia University, Japan. He has written on Cambodian politics, international peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and regional security in Pacific Asia.