The Cambodian Challenge for Party & Party System Institutionalization
https://static.blog4ever.com/2011/01/463666/artfichier_463666_202462_201101222225946.pdf
The Cambodian Challenge for Party
& Party System Institutionalization
Sorpong Peou
Professor of International Security
Sophia University, Tokyo
(Preliminary Draft for Discussion only)
Introduction:
This paper analyses party and party system institutionalization in Cambodia. The question to be dealt with is whether the country’s parties and party system have become institutionalized. The concept of institutionalization is still subject to debate,1 but this paper works within framework developed in this volume. Party and party system institutionalization as a key variable is a political process not associated with democratization. Institutionalization is defined more or less as a process of stabilization whereby political parties become more and more cohesive as well as disciplined in organizational terms, electoral systems become more and more stable, and electoral competition becomes less and less volatile because of growing public support and their deepening social roots. In my view, institutionalization should also be associated with growing political unity among elites within political parties.
Both Allen Hicken and Erik Martinez Kuhonta make additional insightful observations, one of which is that institutionalization can proceed in semi-democratic or semi-authoritarian states (such as Malaysia and Singapore) because dominant parties can undermine the opposition’s ability to compete in electoral processes and become institutionalized over time. What they also suggest is that party systems that are increasingly institutionalized are those that become increasingly stable because hegemonic parties not only become institutionalized over time but also push opposition parties to become institutionalized as well. Institutional types also do not matter significantly, but institutional or historical legacies do. Existing political parties that were institutionalized at an earlier point in time, for instance, tend to develop a higher level of institutionalization relative to those that emerged after or later.
These insightful observations fit nicely with the theoretical tradition of historical institutionalism,
but the key question is whether they enjoy strong empirical support. Cambodia as a case study can help shed further light on these observations. Almost twenty years after a democratic transition began on 23 October 1991 (when four armed factions and 18 other foreign states finally signed the Paris Peace Agreements) the process of democratization in this country remains unconsolidated. The country held its first national election in May 1993, after which a coalition government was formed and a fairly liberal constitution was adopted,2 but the regime led by Prime Minister Hun Sen of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has become increasingly authoritarian. The country’s multiparty system now looks more like a hegemonic one, “in which a relatively institutionalized ruling party monopolizes the political arena, using coercion, patronage, media control, and other means to deny formally legal opposition parties any real chance of competing for power.”3 “Other parties are permitted to exist, but as second class, licensed parties.”4 As of 2008, Cambodia had held elections on a regular basis, but they allowed the CPP to establish itself as the dominant party. The ruling elite, led by Hun Sen, have been quite successful in consolidating their political power base across the country...