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2 - Locking-In a Constitution, Locking-Out ‘the People’

Revisiting Cambodia’s Post-conflict Constitution-Making Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

Benjamin Lawrence
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

This chapter focuses on the moment in which, and the means by which, Cambodia’s 1993 Constitution was made. I begin with an overview of the peace-building process, from the negotiation of the Paris Peace Accords to the arrival of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia to democratic elections and the formation of a coalition government. Then, I reflect on the growing literature that studies constitution-making processes, and particularly post-conflict constitution-making processes, to lay out some of the central considerations that are at play in processes like that which took place in Cambodia. Next, I provide a detailed account of how Cambodia’s constitution-making process proceeded. Rather than offering a comprehensive account of the process, however, I take a thematic approach, focusing on the roles of international actors, domestic elites, and, finally, public participation. In addition to there being a notable degree of ‘self-dealing’ and ‘deciding not to decide’ by political elites, I conclude, the constitution-making process was characterised by the international community’s ‘locking-in’ of formal commitments to liberal democracy and a ‘locking-out’ of public participation that prevented local voices from being heard by the constitution-makers themselves.

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Chapter
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In the Shadow of the Constitution
The Micropolitics of Constitutional Contestation in Cambodia
, pp. 38 - 74
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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