Adaptive Authoritarian Resilience: Cambodian Strongman’s Quest for Legitimacy

ABSTRACT

Hun Sen has ruled as Cambodia’s prime minister for over three decades, making him one of the world’s most durable political leaders. Studies of Cambodia’s politics tend to portray him as a powerful strongman. They also explain major bases of his power consolidation such as his use of repression, patron–client network politics, personalised control of the country, electoral and political manipulation and resource exploitation. However, while the leader’s investment in it for his political durability has been continuous and ubiquitous in the literature, the legitimation as an important base of Hun Sen’s power has been less appreciated. This article addresses this gap. While agreeing that Hun Sen is a strongman, it is argued that he has remained politically vulnerable because the aforementioned bases of power are inadequate in dealing with the challenges his rule faces. Hun Sen’s regime has to grapple with constant legitimacy deficits. This article argues that the quest for legitimacy has been effective, contributing to his political survival and this constitutes an important feature of Hun Sen’s adaptive authoritarian resilience.

KEY WORDS:

• Legitimation
• authoritarian resilience
• strongman
• democratisation
• Cambodia
• Hun Sen

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Philip Taylor for his mentorship and comments. He would like to thank Andrew Walker and Nick Cheesman for valuable comments on an early draft of this article. He is also grateful to the editor of the Journal of Contemporary Asia and the anonymous reviewers for their generosity and comments. The author wishes to thank the Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University for providing administrative support during his time as a Visiting Fellow between April and July 2019, which enabled him to complete the final draft of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As examples, see Peou (1998); Heder (2005); Hughes (2006); Un (2006); Jacobsen and Stuart-Fox (2013); Baaz and Lilja (2014); Strangio (2014); Chambers (2015); Milne (2015); Verver and Dahles (2015); Morgenbesser (2017a, 2018); Sutton (2018).

2. Legitimation can also be considered an “adventure” for Hun Sen given his willingness to experiment with new legitimation projects as will be evident in some of his six legitimation projects examined in this article.

3. The CPP’s seats in the National Assembly reduced significantly from 90 in the 2008 election to 68 in 2013, while the CNRP won 55 seats and led the CPP in at least three populous provinces.

4. The prime minister has three sons, two of whom are high-ranking officials in the military and another a member of parliament and a leader of the CPP’s youth wing. Observers believe Hun Sen is grooming his children for leadership roles. His eldest son, Hun Manet, who is currently the commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, is the most likely candidate for the prime ministerial position.

5. That Hun Sen and many of his senior officials had peasant backgrounds and received limited education has led to public comparison with opposition politicians, many of whom have elite backgrounds and have received education abroad.

6. There has long been speculation about internal rivalry in the CPP between factions led by Hun Sen and the late Chea Sim, former CPP chairman and senate president (see Heder 2012, 104; Chambers 2015, 188).

7. The Yellow Shirts used Cambodia’s proposed inscription of Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage Site to fan Thai nationalist anger against the Thai governments associated with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (see Puangthong 2013).

8. The traditional media did challenge the leader’s legitimacy, but by this time the challenges were mainly limited to internationally-based media like Radio Free Asia and Voice of America which had also gone online to broadcast news critical of the government. The government responded by repressing them and launching government-friendly, online media like Fresh News.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency.