- Title
- Klepto-neoliberalism: authoritarianism and patronage in Cambodia
- Creator
- Springer, Simon
- Relation
- States of Discipline: Authoritarian Neoliberalism and the Contested Reproduction of Captialist Order p. 235-254
- Relation
- Transforming Capitalism
- Relation
- https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783486182/States-of-Discipline-Authoritarian-Neoliberalism-and-the-Contested-Reproduction-of-Capitalist-Order
- Publisher
- Rowman & Littlefield
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Neoliberalism is never uniform. Instead, it is always hybridized and imbricated within existing political economic matrixes and sociocultural process. In the Cambodian context neoliberalism is characterized by its intersection with kleptocracy, and specifically the ways in which patronage has enabled local elites to transform, co-opt, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that has focused on ‘asset stripping’ public resources. This chapter examines the Royal Government of Cambodia’s (RGC) discursive positioning of populism vis-à-vis international ‘enemies’ inasmuch as it presents a convenient pretext for the tensions of neoliberal development. This discussion critiques the frequent suggestion that the RGC maintains a ‘communist’ outlook rather than recognizing the kleptocratic ‘shadow state’ practices that have been modified to accommodate a neoliberal modality. I then turn my attention more specifically to the mechanisms of Cambodia’s patronage system via an analysis of privatization and primitive accumulation. I assess these developments through a critique of the purview that legal reform will somehow serve as cure-all for development, contrasting this idea with the realities of a judiciary firmly entrenched within patron relations. The degree of political patronage in Cambodia reflects a certain nepotism, or what I am calling ‘nepoliberalism’ to signify a particular application of neoliberalism that is never without the influence of patron politics. The enduring impunity of those with connections to power is the concentration of the final section before the conclusion, where I assess the continuing constraints of the poor with regards to patronage and the inequality and precarity it affords. It is here, in the question of (in)security that Cambodia’s neoliberalization alongside patronage demonstrates the depth of kleptocracy and violence in the country.
- Subject
- neoliberalism; kleptocracy; authoritarianism; Cambodia
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1443202
- Identifier
- uon:41914
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781783486205
- Language
- eng
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