Civil Society Organisations Versus the Ruler: A Zero-Sum Game?

Abstract

This chapter seeks to explain several aspects of civil society organisations (CSOs) operating in Cambodia, namely: why some of them, including grassroots communities and NGOs, are more successful while others are not in achieving their demands; how these CSOs operate in Cambodia; and, is it a zero-sum game? The answers to these questions accentuate the employment of a mixture of concession and repression, the latter being the tools for the political survival of the ruler. In relative terms, the CSO movements examined here failed when they posed a threat to the regime, but otherwise achieved outcomes that were more successful. In this authoritarian regime, the balancing strategies of the patrons—manoeuvring between repression and concession, or a combination of the two—shaped the responses of the subordinate institutions, which subsequently influenced the different responses of the corporations. This balancing act relied on the regime’s prediction of risks and rewards with respect to its political durability. When the CSO movements tended to trigger a high risk to the survival of the regime, the subordinate institutions tended to employ more repressive measures. This model of a regime’s responses shaped, and continues to shape, the mixed outcomes—relative success or failure—of protest movements in Cambodia and elsewhere.