http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3062-1284
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ABSTRACT
Authoritarian regime datasets are an important tool for research in both comparative politics and international relations. Despite widespread use of these categorization schemes, very little attention has been paid to the quality of the judgements contained within them. Using the unambiguous case of Cambodia, this article demonstrates how leading datasets have failed to capture the manifest features of Hun Sen’s personalist dictatorship. This is demonstrated by the unconstrained and discretionary authority he wields across six domains of control. In addition to reclassifying Cambodia as a party-personalist regime, this article raises questions about the reliability of classification judgements for more opaque authoritarian regimes. The article has implications for existing and ongoing research into whether personalist dictatorships will undergo democratization, initiate interstate war, and commit repression.
Acknowledgements
In addition to the editors and anonymous reviewers, the author would like to thank Erica Frantz, Tom Pepinsky, Jason Sharman, and Dag Tanneberg for their helpful feedback on this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Lee Morgenbesser http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3062-1284
Notes
1 Wright, “Invest or Insure”; Fjelde, “Generals, Dictators, and Kings”; Weeks, Dictators at War and Peace; Wright and Escribà-Folch, “Authoritarian Institutions”; Way and Weeks, “Making It Personal”; Davenport, “State Repression.”
2 Svolik, Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 31.
3 Wahman, Teorell, and Hadenius, “Authoritarian Regime Types”; Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, “Democracy”; Kailitz and Stockemer, “Regime Legitimation”; Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, “Autocratic Breakdown.”
4 The “descriptive method” refers to the process by which social scientists describe classes of events. The six domains of personalization represent a “synthesis.” This means inferences will be drawn from the description of each domain in order to understand how they revolve around the central theme of personalist dictatorship. See Gerring, Social Science Methodology, 143–4.
5 Frantz and Kendall-Taylor, “Pathways.”
6 Geddes, Paradigms and Sand Castles, 51.
7 Svolik, Politics of Authoritarian Rule, 5–6.
8 Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, How Dictatorships Work.
9 Vyas and Kurmanaev, “Venezuelan President”; Vyas and Munoz, “Venezuela Supreme Court.”
10 Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule, 143.
11 Gandhi, Political Institutions; Boix and Svolik, “Foundations”; Morgenbesser, Behind the Façade.
12 Marquez, Non-Democratic Politics.
13 Frantz and Ezrow, Dictators and Dictatorships, 224.
14 Decalo, Psychoses of Power, 90–5.
15 This definition is adapted from Scott, “Patron-Client Politics.” On iterations of its various sub-types in authoritarian regimes, see Chehabi and Linz, Sultanistic Regimes; Bach and Gazibo, Neopatrimonialism in Africa and Beyond.
16 Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments, 62.
17 Erdmann and Engel, “Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered,” 114.
18 Snyder, “Explaining Transitions”; Brownlee, “ … And Yet they Persist.”
19 Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, “Military Rule”; Escriba-Folch, “Accountable for What?”
20 Brooker, Non-Democratic Regimes, 62–7.
21 All biographical details of Hun Sen are from Strangio, Hun Sen’s Cambodia, 21–42.
22 Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, How Dictatorships Work, Ch. 3.
23 On the dynamics of neopatrimonialism in Cambodia, both historically and contemporarily, see Chandler, History of Cambodia; Un, “Patronage Politics”; Un, “Cambodia”; Craig and Pak, “Party Financing”; Morgenbesser, “The Failure of Democratisation.”
24 Thayer, “Cambodia,” 88; Pheap and Peter, “As Elections Near,” 3.
25 Strangio, Hun Sen’s Cambodia, 101.
26 Odom and Henderson, “Oknha Ranks Grow,” 11–2; Verver and Dahles, “The Institutionalisation of Oknha.”
27 Chansy, “Hun Sen Appoints,” 23.
28 Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge.
29 Human Rights Watch, Tell Them That I Want to Kill Them.
30 Hayes, “All Eyes”, 2; Chambers, “Neo-Sultanistic Tendencies.”
31 These figures are based on information from Un, “Cambodia”; Chambers, “Neo-Sultanistic Tendencies.”
32 Slocomb, People’s Republic of Kampuchea, 126–7.
33 Royal Government of Cambodia, Defending the Kingdom, 6.
34 Vickery, “The Cambodian People’s Party”; Um, “Cambodia in 1994.”
35 Strangio, Hun Sen’s Cambodia, 74.
36 On events during this period, including the causes of the 1997 coup, see Brown and Zasloff, Cambodia Confounds; Roberts, Political Transition; Thayer and Chanda, “Law of the Gun.”
37 Peou, “Hun Sen’s Pre-Emptive Coup.”
38 Grainger, “RCAF’s Fractured Past,” 1
39 Greitens, Dictators and their Secret Police.
40 Thul, Soenthrith, and Samean, “Ke Kim Yan,” 1.
41 Short, Pol Pot, 386.
42 Cambodia’s 1993 constitution makes the king the supreme commander of the RCAF and chairman of the Supreme Council for National Defence, but his authority is ceremonial. Instead, effective power – including over military appointments (article 21) – rests with the vice-chair and prime minister, Hun Sen.
43 Mehta and Mehta, Strongman, 252.
44 Heder, “Hun Sen’s Consolidation.”
45 Reynolds, “Flex of Muscle,” 1.
46 Strangio, Hun Sen’s Cambodia, 102.
47 Ibid.
48 Vickery, “The Cambodian People’s Party,” 107.
49 Vickery, Kampuchea; Dara, “Military, Police Top Brass,” 1.
50 Human Rights Watch, “Cambodia.”
51 Geddes, Paradigms and Sand Castles, 225.
52 Dara, “Hun Sen New CPP President,” 1.
53 On electoral patronage in Cambodia, see Craig and Pak, “Party Financing”; Un, “Patronage Politics”; Morgenbesser, Behind the Façade.
54 On the legitimation of the CPP and Hun Sen, see Hughes, The Political Economy of Cambodia’s Transition; Noren-Nilsson, “Performance as (Re)incarnation.”
55 Teorell, Determinants of Democratization; Wright and Escribà-Folch, “Authoritarian Institutions.”
56 Peceny, Beer, and Sanchez-Terry, “Dictatorial Peace”; Reiter and Stam, “Identifying the Culprit.”
57 Weeks, Dictators at War and Peace.
58 Wallace and Vannarin, “Thais Offer Rare Rebuke,” 1.
59 Davenport, “State Repression.”
60 Human Rights Watch, “30 Years of Hun Sen.”
61 Davenport, “State Repression”, 500.
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Lee Morgenbesser
Lee Morgenbesser is a research fellow at the Centre for Governance and Public Policy and the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University. His book is titled Behind the Façade: Elections under Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia (Ithaca: SUNY Press, 2016). His articles have appeared in the Australian Journal of International Affairs, Australian Journal of Political Science, Contemporary Politics, European Journal of East Asia Studies, Political Studies and The Pacific Review.