International Democracy Assistance for Peacebuilding: Cambodia and Beyond.

• Author: Ear, Sophal
• Position: Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, The Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations in Cambodia - Book review

International Democracy Assistance for Peacebuilding: Cambodia and Beyond. By Sorpong Peou. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Hardcover: 261pp.

Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, The Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations in Cambodia. By Benny Widyono. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Softcover: 321pp.

Recent studies of Cambodia centre on the Khmer Rouge period, but both books under review cover the more recent period of Cambodia's democratic experiment during and after the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) sponsored elections of 1993. Both are written by two eminently qualified individuals: a seasoned peacekeeper and international bureaucrat originally from Indonesia--Benny Widyono--and a Cambodian-Canadian scholar of post-conflict peacebuilding and democratization--Sorpong Peou.

To be sure, Widyono's and Peou's books fall under different genres: the former is a vivid autobiographical narrative while the latter is a study teeming with erudition. But they each represent valuable contributions to the body of knowledge on post-conflict Cambodia, as well as the practice and theory of peacebuilding and democratization. Combining them both in a single book review is a challenge to say the least. Suffice it to say that Widyono's writing could use the precision and clarity of a more scholarly and rigorous methodological style, while Peou's work could, at times, be livened-up a bit with a more personal narrative style. Widyono's book is engrossing--though riddled with annoying erratas--while Peou's first three chapters (contained in Part 1: The Analytical Framework) are outstanding in terms of reviewing the scholarly literature and establishing a conceptual framework.

Peou introduces the concept of Complex Realist Institutionalism (CRI). While I am uncertain as to the utility of the concept, the literature review is exceptional as is the structured analysis across three levels: the state, the political arena and civil society. Does Peou deliver? For the most part, he certainly does: it is a work of great attention to detail, and one which can hardly be faulted. My only critique would be that for someone with so much direct experience of Cambodia, Peou's chapters in which he presents evidence in support of CRI, seem second-hand and bogged down by minutia.

Moreover, some of Peou's claims go unreferenced (as for example on p. 107 regarding several royalist ministers conducting secret negotiations with Hun...