Global norms in domestic politics: environmental norm contestation in Cambodia's hydropower sector

Abstract

This paper studies environmental norm contestation in Cambodia's hydropower sector, exemplified by the Kamchay Dam. In Cambodia we can observe different discourses in relation to hydropower. These stem directly from a local contest over the path of Cambodia's development, but use global norms as reference points: one emphasizes environmental protection, using environmental impact assessment (EIA) as point of reference; and one emphasizes the utility of the clean development mechanism (CDM) to attract large-scale investment into the energy sector while downplaying the need for environmental protection. While EIA and CDM are complementary, key actors present them as contradictory. This produces a normative fragmentation of the field of environmental protection. The paper argues that the norm diffusion literature, by presenting norm conflicts as hierarchical local–global conflicts, has paid insufficient attention to the fact that local actors actively draw on global norms to justify domestic development policies. More emphasis on this phenomenon will lead to a better understanding of the role of global norms in domestic politics and will enhance our knowledge of how domestic development policies are contested.

Keywords:

• Cambodia
• water
• environment
• hydropower
• norms
• competing institutional logics

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to the German Development Institute for funding this research. I would also and especially like to thank Waltina Scheumann. Hady Riad has lent invaluable support during the process of data collection in Cambodia. My gratitude further goes to Lena Rethel, Graham Smith, Zhong Zhang, Hinrich Voss and Naho Mirumachi for their comments on previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For strategies to overcome fragmentation see for example, Pache and Santos (2013).

2. These conflicts are embedded in competing ideas about the character of the environment: from a narrow technical notion (e.g. a river in terms of its hydrological characteristics that can be exploited for hydropower purposes) to a deep ecology (Plumwood 2002) and complex systems perspective in which the environment is cast as a social-ecological system (Walker et al. 2002).

3. http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/Validation/DB/SZMYEKN22NBGRL9K2T27WX22O9Z8US/view.html

4. For the validation website see: (http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/Validation/DB/QFMTTATFT920BBVX9JOKGOIHX2ES5Y/view.html).