The Genocide-Corruption Nexus: A Critical Analysis of Violence and Corruption in

Contemporary Asian Regimes

Sara Judith Sokleap Hauf

Department of Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Honors Thesis

Defense Date: April 6, 2021

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Svetoslav Derderyan, Department of Political Science

Defense Committee:

Dr. Svetoslav Derderyan, Department of Political Science Dr. Janet L. Donavan, Department of Political Science Kerry Reilly, MFA, Program for Writing and Rhetoric

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Abstract

This thesis provides a critical analysis of the impact of general and specific forms of

political violence on corruption levels in Asian regimes. It argues that genocide, due to its

distinctive nature of brutality by conceptual definition, has a unique effect on corruption,

different from a general history of violence. This is seminal research because until now, not

many scholars have been willing to disentangle the various effects, especially in areas of

corruption, of different types of violence. After reviewing key literature that discusses violence,

corruption, and the nexus between these two concepts, I will then use a multi-method approach

to support my theory and thesis. First, I will conduct a quantitative analysis using different

measurements to see if these variables carry different statistical significance when applied to my

dependent variable. Through this statistical analysis, I find that there is indeed a statistically

significant effect that justifies the need for my second method: I will apply a qualitative analysis

through a critical case study of Cambodia. By exploring this specific case, I will be able to

determine the specific causality related to a legacy of genocide and its subsequent effects on

corruption. Within this section, I will further explore the specific types of corruption that a

history of genocide is more likely to engender.

Keywords: Corruption, Genocide

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I. Introduction

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the

Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), marking a historic

international commitment to recognize and prevent the atrocities that materialized during World

War II. The treaty conceptualized genocide and expanded the way the world viewed state-

sponsored violence and civil war as an international issue. However, despite the development of

this momentous policy, genocide continued to take place across the globe throughout the second

half of the twentieth century (Mazower, 2002). Particularly at the height of the Cold War,

international and civil wars terrorized states and subsequently left populations vulnerable to

sociopolitical challenges after these violent conflicts came to an end.

East Asia throughout this period struggled to contain proxy wars that only seemed to fuel

the development of more conflicts within the region as exogenous actors got involved. Shortly

after the Korean War (1950-1953) ended, the Vietnam War (1954-1975) surfaced on the

continent. Genocide in Cambodia (1975-1969) ensued shortly after. The consequences of these

conflicts within the region—as with most major wars—permeated nearly every level of the

society as reconstruction efforts, international intervention, mass casualties, and political

instability fundamentally changed the way a state could operate for a time (Lindberg & Orjuela,

2014). My research explores the effects of this violence in the context of corruption, building on

post-conflict scholarship that discusses corruption as a consequence of war (Le Billion, 2008;

Lindberg & Orjuela, 2014).

Corruption is widely defined as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”

(Johnson, 2014). Because it assumes many different forms, corruption can pervade in all levels

of society, including—but not limited to—business, government, the courts, media, civil society,

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health, education, infrastructure, and sports (Transparency International, 2021). Non-

governmental organizations (NGO) such as Transparency International are concerned with

preventing and ending corrupt practices globally; in an effort to promote transparency, the

organization has developed various indicators to operationalize corruption around the world. For

example, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) provides a ranking on 180 different countries

and territories based on “their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts

and businesspeople” (2021).

The average CPI score in the Asia Pacific region is a 45/100 today (Transparency

International, 2021). A lower CPI score—that is, a score closer to 0—indicates higher corruption

levels within a state. From this initial research, I found that Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia

and North Korea rank among the lowest scoring countries in the region and globally; these

results led to my second set of early findings, as I found that these same countries also share a

history of war and mass violence within the last 60 years (Khan, 2006; Barron et al., 2017). In

order to explore if a link indeed existed between violence and corruption within this region, I

arrive at my first set of research questions: Does a history of violence or genocide increase the

prevalence of corruption in Asian countries? How does the recency and magnitude of civil

conflict and genocide increase the possibility of corruption in Asian regimes?

This study will also explore the nature of violence. Aron (1996) in a sociopolitical

definition of war argues that war is “…a means for resolving differences between units of the

highest order of political organization” (Aron, 1996). Through this context, war is seen as a

procedure where an exchange is made to appease any political or economic demands that may be

driving violence between different units. In many contexts, especially as I conceptualize it in the

United States, war can also be seen as voluntary, nationalistic, or honorable. Genocide, however,

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is completely different in nature. The process, according to its UN definition, relies on the

systematic, targeted, and intentional killing or destruction of groups based on national identity,

race, ethnicity or religion (UN General Assembly, 1951). This conceptualization of genocide as a

violent process differs greatly from the ‘resolution’ perspective that defines war in many

contexts. Thus, I will also explore the following question: Does genocide, isolated from general

war and violence, have a unique effect on corruption due to the unique nature of its brutality?

This project’s findings serve to broaden research within the fields of corruption and

genocide in the Asian region. Based on the time period and region I explore, I find that genocide

has a unique effect on a state’s control of corruption different from a general history of violence.

When applied to a critical case study, the process of genocide creates short-term and long-term

contextual effects that impact the development of specific manifestations of corruption within the

state.

II. Literature Review

Although there is vast scholarship on the concepts, causes, and effects of corruption and

genocide individually, I also find that there is a significant lack of research that connects them.

Furthermore, literature often discusses violence more generally in the context of war. The

literature review section is organized as follows: First, I will review seminal pieces that look at

the causes and effects of violence. Then, I will look at corruption; this will be through exploring

the differences between economic and political corruption, and particularly corruption in Asia.

Finally, I will explore the nexus between violence and corruption.

Violence and the State

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In the first section of this literature review, I will explore what scholars have argued the

role of violence and genocide has been in regard to state-building. Genocide and corruption are

rarely studied together, as the complexity of the concepts often result in disagreements about

their connection to the state. Some argue that conceptually, violence is inherent to the state; its

origins as the constitutive governance unit in our modern international system are rooted in the

violent conflicts that emerged between leaders in sixteenth-century Europe. Charles Tilly

famously argued that as kings began to unify and privatize their armies to extend their control

over territory, it consequently produced an environment where sovereign states could emerge

(Tilly, 1985). As states began to dominate globally, concentrating monopolies on the legitimate

use of force over their constituents, these units have further extended their coercive power to

achieve political goals both internally and externally. Today, this form of violence is commonly

referred to as political violence (Krug, Mercy, Dahlberg & Zwi, 2002). My research explores

these early theories of political violence in a different context. While these theories connect

violence to the state, my project focuses on how political violence fragments the effectiveness of

the state, rather than contributing to state-building itself.

The initial scholarship surrounding political violence was dominated by historians who

analyzed violence through particular episodes of conflicts. However, in the twentieth century,

political scientists attempted to further these accounts by providing theories on its origins. Many

political scientists have focused on the twentieth century, observing that during the Cold War,

violence has had an unprecedented impact on societies: conflicts during this period have killed

over 100 million civilians since 1900 (Valentino, 2014). This observation drives my present

research, as I will later analyze the impact of conflicts in Asia that occurred during the second

half of the twentieth century.

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Prior to the 1990s, theorists viewed twentieth-century civilian bloodshed as “collateral

damage” of larger international and civil wars. Historian Sahr-Conway Lanz (2006) points to the

Vietnam era as the period that popularized this consensus on civilian violence as U.S. forces

maintained little control over the “violence they employed” (Conway-Lanz, 2006, p. 220). These

theories omitted the state as a primary actor in these violent events. Robert Kaplan in Balkan

Ghosts (1993) strengthened this argument through his analysis of the fall of Yugoslavia, arguing

that historically religious differences between Catholics, Muslims, and Eastern Orthodox

followers produced violent conflicts that weakened the Yugoslavian regime (Kaplan, 1993).

These views were readily accepted by U.S. leaders in the 1990s who attempted to emphasize

these ancient and tribal hatreds, asserting that the conflicts had no “political purpose” (Valentino,

2014, p. 90). Ultimately, these early theories attempted to illustrate this violence as unintended

consequences of other conflicts. My research refutes these notions, arguing that the state’s

responsibility in these events is the primary catalyst for the social and political consequences that

follow. Thus, my project builds on more recent scholarship arguing that this violence is largely

orchestrated by state actors.

Role of the State: Exploitation and Modern Violence

As the Cold War came to end, political scientists came to recognize that these earlier

theories did not successfully acknowledge the state’s role in fostering group resentments that

turned violent (Brubaker & Laitin 1998; Kalyvas 2006). These scholars argued that while these

casualties often aligned with ethnic divisions within societies, the previous findings failed to

focus on the complex nature of violence that can be further explained by endogenous political

motivations. Gagnon (1994) extended research on the Yugoslavian conflicts, arguing that civilian

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actors in these events did not seek war; rather, the emergence of violence stemmed from the

“purposeful actions of political actors who actively created violent conflict” (Gagnon, 1994, p.

164). Additionally, Human Rights Watch (1995) supported this argument in Slaughter Among

Neighbors, which followed field reports on twentieth-century conflicts such as those that

occurred in Rwanda. From these studies, they asserted that the origins of ethnic conflicts were

deliberate political actions, as governments “[exploited] communal differences” that drove the

outbreak of violence (Human Rights Watch, 1995). My research acknowledges these insights in

order to expand on these conclusions; that is, that there are significant political consequences of

state-sponsored violence.

Other scholars have extended their research on mass violence, turning their attention to

political, institutional, and ideological explanations. Similar to Moore and Tilly’s theories of

modernization, researchers argue that beyond state-formation, modernization led to mass civilian

casualties as it created an environment for processes of ethnic cleansing and genocide to emerge.

Norman Naimark in Fires of Hatred (2002) argued that modernization helped conceptualize

early notions of European nationalism in the nineteenth century, and the states that emerged in

the twentieth century as a result of this nationalism created conditions of genocide as states

organized along ethnic lines (Naimark, 2002). As these new ideas of violence developed,

political scientists also began to focus on ideologies and political systems to account for the rise

of mass violence. Modern political developments, such as communism, drew much attention to

the implications of the rise of totalitarian regimes.

Complexity of Genocide

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While many of these ideas emerged to counter original theories on ‘ancient hatreds,’ an

influential outcome from these studies was a new focus on political elites and members of their

administrations. Theorists such as Peter Novick (2000) ushered in a new view of genocide,

specifically focusing on the Holocaust, as he observed this form of mass violence was

orchestrated and maintained by the state (Novick, 2000). Mazowzer (2002) analyzes the impact

of this literature, stating “many of the uniqueness of the genocide of Jews want to claim it as a or

perhaps the defining event of the twentieth century” (Mazower, 2002, p. 1159). This, he further

argues, helped concentrate the Holocaust as a major case study in the field of mass violence and

modern society, creating a model for scholars to follow that focused narrowly on the dominance

of the violent state and the deliberate actions to eradicate a specific population. My research

builds on this theory, as the purposeful extermination of groups at the hands of the state not only

leaves a population physically vulnerable, but also alters a group’s relationship to government

and political life that could lead to long-term systemic issues.

While the Holocaust provides some insight on the dynamics of genocide, Mazower

(2002) nonetheless argues that the resulting paradigm is restricted to Europe. Although state

ideology may explain the events that happened in Nazi Germany, many instances of mass

violence cannot be explained by these same factors. Mazower (2002) cites the Partition of India

(1947) and La Violencia during the Cold War in Colombia as examples. He argues that the

dominant European examples fail to explain the persistence of mass violence in cases outside of

the continent (2002). He ultimately asserts that scholars must consider other factors in their

structural or systemic explanations of mass violence, and that geopolitical location and the

impact of wars may encompass broader cases. Though he nevertheless defends the state as a

primary actor in these conflicts, the variations in state behavior based on geopolitical location

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among other factors have led to different outcomes. My findings will expand on this notion; by

moving away from these Eurocentric models I will contribute to this scholarship on genocide as I

observe that states in Asia with a history of genocide continue to suffer from the effects of this

violence within their respective regimes. This is a vastly different outcome than the dominant

European example.

Corruption

While violence has been incorporated into some theories on the origins of corruption, the

complexity of corruption as it impacts society has been primarily explained by economic and

political factors. As my research explores the effects of political violence on corruption, I will

review the theories that analyze the emergence and facilitation of corrupt practices, particularly

in a political and economic environment. These factors will serve as important control variables

in my dataset and subsequent regressions that I will discuss later in my paper.

Early theorists argued that corruption has existed since the beginning of mankind,

supported through theories on the nature of human interactions and their subsequent social

organization. This position follows early theories of human nature that Hobbes and Rousseau

introduced. Here, the contemporary literature to support this argument is rather limited but

reflects Shleifer and Vishny’s findings that corruption is “pervasive and significant” globally

today (Shleifer and Vishny, 1993, p. 599). Culturally, Bardhan (1997) argues that “what is

regarded in one culture as corrupt may be considered a part of routine transaction in another”

(Bardhan, 1997, p. 1330). For example, the exchange of gifts may be normalized in business

exchanges in many developing countries. Here, corruption may persist as societies grapple with

their traditional norms as “modernist social norms [emerge] in the same social and political

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spaces, with a corresponding lack of clarity about the appropriate application of acceptable rules”

(Clammer, 2012, p. 116). However, social and cultural theories maintain vast limitations,

especially as scholars have more recently prescribed exogenous political and economic

explanations to these social outcomes.

Political

Peter Lamour and Nick Wolanin (2001) largely refute the social context of corruption.

While they maintain that corruption is generally tied to the behaviors of individuals in

calculating the benefits of accepting opportunities of corrupt practices, the structure and

organization of the political system they interact with plays an important role in maintaining

corruption (Lamour and Wolanin, 2001). Clammer (2012) further analyzes Lamour and Wolanin

(2001):

“Assuming the opportunities for corruption exist in all societies, a corrupt outcome

is more probable in situations of weak organizational culture, an inefficient or

corrupt police force or a cowed press or one with little tradition of investigative

journalism. Corrupt behavior is likely to occur at the point where these three

subsystems meet--at the point of negative energy, as it were. In turn, these

subsystems will be embedded in larger political cultures and norms of economic

activity.” (Clammer, 2012, p. 117).

Furthermore, Fisman (2001) observed that corruption tends to be pervasive in highly

centralized systems, as these states often implement institutions that operate outside of the view

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of its citizens (Fisman, 2001). Bardhan & Mookherjee (2006), further argue that centralized

systems exacerbate administrative corruption through control of resources, and political

corruption where leaders aim to gain power illegally or outside the scope of law (Bardhan &

Mookherjee, 2006). In democratic systems, scholars have found that corruption levels are lower,

as institutions within this system are often implemented to hold actors accountable, for example,

through their judiciaries and electoral systems (Drapalova, Mungiu-Pippidi, Palifka and Vrushi,

2019). Democratic systems also tend to be more transparent, which further limits corruption as

illegal transactions between political actors are less hidden from public view.

Nevertheless, there are limitations in linking democracy to lower levels of corruption;

Amundsen (1999) ultimately argues that while the data supports lower levels of corruption when

states are more democratic, when “one moves from the extreme levels of authoritarianism

towards increased ‘freedom,’ not much is gained in reduced levels of corruption” (Amundsen,

1999, p. 18). Due to these findings, political structure will be important to consider in my model;

however, I will not constrain this variable to regime-type. This will be treated as one of my

controls.

Economic

Generally, scholars have found that states with higher income levels tend to have lower

levels of corruption (Goel and Nelson, 1989). Amundsen (1999) analyzed data from “the

Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of Transparency International, and income from the GNP per

capita of 1995 basic indicators of the last Word Development Report by the World Bank” to

support these findings (p. 15). While Amundsen (1999) finds that the relationship is strong

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between these indicators, the table does not establish the causality. Attempting to correct this

limitation, scholars have further analyzed systemic transitions.

In the economic context, literature has drawn on the process of economic liberalization,

as this transition often produces uncertainty and a lack of trust in new institutions (1999). States

that pursue structural adjustment programs to liberate their economies often exacerbate

corruption levels. Zúñiga and Mullard (2018) of Transparency International find that through

these policies, states assume a new role in the economy, creating an unstable economic

environment that can be conducive to new corrupt practices to manage this transition (Zúñiga

and Mullard, 2018). Scholars further argue that this environment creates corruption risks as

governments reduce spending, maintain weak institutions to oversee the effectiveness of these

reforms, and produce an unstable public who do not trust these reforms (Breen and Gillanders,

2015). Economic stability therefore serves as another important control in my present research.

On a narrower level, Reinsberg et al. (2018) argue that the transfer of state ownership of

companies (i.e., privatization) associated with structural adjustment programs weakens the

function of the state’s bureaucracy as they lose funding, further increasing corruption risk

(Reinsberg et al., 2018). This is further supported by Decoeur (2018) who argued that

privatization encourages nepotism and corrupt patron-client relationships as the boundaries

between private and public sectors become more ambiguous (Decouer, 2018). Furthermore, if

states that implement these reforms maintain “weak governance and regulations” often allow

international intervention that--maybe unintentionally--maintain or even exacerbate corruption in

the sectors they control (Zúñiga and Mullard, 2018). These findings illustrate the relevancy of

political and economic factors in my research on corruption; as I have stated earlier, I will build

on these theories by analyzing their impact as control variables.

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Violence and Corruption

This brings me to the most seminal aspect of my literature review; namely, what scholars

have analyzed so far about the relationship between violence and corruption. I find that the

strongest arguments linking violence to corruption possibilities are those developed by post-

conflict theorists. Clammer (2012) finds that violence has become a dominant feature of public

life in every society, but particularly “in societies experiencing rapid political and economic

transformations” as these transitions produce chaos that is embedded in the system and its

institutions (Clammer, 2012, p. 120). He argues that corruption is a by-product of this chaotic,

violent system; however, Clammer fails to identify a direct causal link between violence and

corruption, as he further argues that a wider view of violence that incorporates the interaction

between globalization, neoliberalism and development must be considered to explain the

persistence of this chaos on a global scale. My research similarly acknowledges that this chaos

indeed exists during societal transformation, though I argue that this transformation manifests as

mass violence is perpetrated or orchestrated by the state and inflicted on a population. However,

in order to address any limitations to establish causality, I will further break-down the dynamics

and effects of violence in my quantitative analysis aggregated with control variables.

Scholars often focus on war when analyzing the impacts of violence on corruption

opportunities. War is not only deeply detrimental to a country’s population as societies face

significant casualties during combat, but also tends to lead to internal grievances related to

"mistrust…the militarization of society, physical destruction, a culture of fear, and a lack of

freedom of association and expression” (Lindberg & Orjuela, 2014, p. 728). These outcomes

often lead to systemic changes as governments combat the socioeconomic costs of these violent

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conflicts and can impact corruption as groups find more benefits in corrupt transactions in the

short-term (Andvig, 2007). Focusing on civil war, Andvig (2007) argues that the “enhanced role

of military actions” to contain conflict can exacerbate these illegal transactions, especially if

government soldiers take advantage of the destroyed physical environment, embezzling and

plundering resources with little accountability for their own gain in the conflict (2007, p. 36). I

will operationalize the impact of war later in my paper, measuring a history of civil war through

a history of violence independent variable. However, I will distinguish war by analyzing a history

of genocide in a separate regression.

Additionally, even after war has ended, leadership structures often maintain the power to

control resources, and weakened regimes may fail to provide basic public services to its

weakened populations. Boucher et al. (2007) state that “cross-border trafficking in people and

commodities continues after war has ended,” enforcing the dominance of the informal economy

where corrupt transaction can flourish (Boucher, Durch, Midyette, Rose & Terry, 2007, p. xii).

Furthermore, as the formal economy weakens, the government’s failure to pay public officials

heightens corruption between these bureaucrats who are left to line their pockets themselves

(Boucher et al., 2007). Some post-conflict societies have implemented structural adjustment

measures to combat economic consequences of war, they have often done more harm than good

as they have increased corruption risks and tolerance of these exchanges. Le Billion (2008)

argues that post-war economic liberalization to incentivize growth and peace building often

attracts international actors that seek to intervene in their extractive sectors (Le Billion, 2008).

However, this sector is “one with high risk of corruption and rent-seeking in its various stages”

and societies will often begin to accept corruption in exchange for their economic growth

(Lindberg & Orjuela, 2014, p. 729). My qualitative analysis through a single case study of

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Cambodia will similarly address leadership structures post-genocide and its impact on

corruption, though the economic-driven findings of these scholars will be considered as a control

variable in my regressions.

While the “causes, dynamics, and effects of corruption” manifest in similar forms across

corruption-affected societies, Lindberg and Orjuela (2014) find that post-conflict societies often

experience significantly intensified and entrenched corruption-related problems through war and

subsequent reconstruction efforts (Lindberg and Orjuela, 2014). Within this field, scholars have

studied various forms of reconstruction efforts, observing that international intervention in the

context of aid, peace-building, and foreign economic intervention often exacerbates corruption

risks in these post-conflict states. Lindner (2014) argues that while accepting aid may help

mitigate poverty and inequality within a state, the aid is often misused without proper

accountability structures, increasing corruption in the process (Lindner, 2014). Furthermore,

international actors often attempt to impose policies to deal with the corruption that emerges in

post-conflict societies; however, many of these interveners “are not always non-corrupt” and do

not have a useful understanding of corruption in the local context (Lindberg & Orjuela, 2014).

These reconstruction efforts provide the most compelling basis for the theory I will explore

through my case study and throughout the rest of my paper.

My study acknowledges these conclusions as my quantitative research operationalizes

Asian civil wars and deaths under military regimes to measure the impact of violence on

corruption. Nevertheless, as I have discussed above, my research also focuses on genocide as a

separate independent variable. While genocide may create similar environmental and social

conditions impacting the emergence of corruption opportunities in a regime, because of its

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intentional nature to eliminate specific groups and the magnitude of death the process produces,

it may have a different impact than war on corruption.

Corruption in Asia

While corruption persists in almost every society in its various forms, countries in the

Asia Pacific regions are some of the most corrupt states in the world. According to Transparency

International’s (2019) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), states such as Myanmar, Bangladesh,

Cambodia, North Korea, Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan all suffer from high CPI scores.

Khan (2006) argues that the root of this stems from fragmentation of political systems within the

region, but corruption at the bureaucratic level is tied closely with liberalization and privatization

(Daniel & Khan, 2006). Asia provides an important step for scholars researching corruption, as

this region has a unique and complex history of colonialism, violence, systemic transitions, and

development. The corruption that persists in these states may vary, but the condition of violence

nonetheless exists as a potential cause of corruption. Understanding the scale and magnitude of

violence is the main focus of my project, and in this scale, genocide tends to be the most extreme

form.

III. Thesis and Theory

The literature I have reviewed on state-sponsored violence suggests that this form of

conflict will lead to fundamental changes in regimes. While corruption is largely related to

interactions and transactions of individual actors, there are environments where opportunities of

corruption are greater than others (Linderberg & Orjuela, 2014). From my initial findings and

review of literature, I hypothesize that violence impacts social and political institutions and

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creates structures where corruption can persist; more specifically, the process of genocide creates

vulnerabilities that make a state more susceptible to corrupt transactions. These vulnerabilities

develop through weak state bureaucracies, an increased lack of social trust in the system post-

conflict, and the high likelihood that international interventionists will ignore the actual needs of

the affected populations due to conflicting interests. I will explore this further in my single case

study of Cambodia.

I derive this hypothesis on how violence creates vulnerabilities in state-building that

make the state more susceptible to corrupt behavior primarily from the research of Lindberg and

Orjuela (2014) and Lindner (2014), whose research found that aid in post-conflict societies tends

to only mitigate conflict and violence in the short-term. Lindberg and Orjuela (2014) also find

that post-conflict societies suffer from mistrust that develops during these violent periods.

Furthermore, Paris (1997) offers a theory on peacebuilding and its relationship to capitalism;

here Paris argues that capitalism creates interfering interests between intervening parties in war-

afflicted states, ultimately exacerbating conflicts rather than alleviating them (Paris, 1997).

While Paris focuses more on conflict resolution than on corruption, this explanation serves as an

important reference for my project as violence in the Asian region during the second half of the

twentieth century stemmed largely from the Cold War and tensions between capitalist and

communist states.

I. Research Design, Methods, and Data

For this study, I will use a multi-method approach to support my theory and hypothesis.

This multi-method approach is conceptualized in the following way: First, I will conduct a

quantitative analysis using different measurements to see if these variables carry different

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statistical significance when applied to my dependent variable. Through this analysis, I find that

there is indeed a statistically significant effect that justifies the need for my second method: I will

subsequently apply a qualitative analysis through a critical case study of Cambodia. By exploring

this specific case, I will be able to determine the specific causality related to a legacy of genocide

and its subsequent effects on corruption. Within this section, I will further explore the specific

types of corruption that a history of genocide is more likely to engender.

Measurements

Operationalizing violence was procedurally complex, as researchers have used a number

of different variables to quantitatively define violence. Hibbs (1973) in a cross-national analysis

on mass political violence used three main criteria to establish the variables in his study.

Violence had to have an “antisystem character…direct and fairly immediate political

significance…[and] involve collective or mass activity” (Hibbs, 1973, p. 7). Through this

definition, he selected six variables: riots, armed attack events, political strikes, assassinations,

deaths from political violence, and antigovernment demonstrations (1973). Although these

variables may encompass the complex dynamic of political violence when applied to his own

study and research questions, my research aims to explore a very specific consequence of

violence: how mass deaths (as a consequence of war or genocide) and the recency of these deaths

may impact a country’s regime and corruption-related opportunities. Dwyer (2017) argues that

“the trick is to set the boundaries” when conceptualizing violence; for the purpose of my present

study, I will define and operationalize violence and genocide with a focus on events carried out

by the state that had a significant impact on a country’s population (Dwyer, 2017). Because there

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are many other variables that I will not be including, this will decrease the specificity of my

model, but I will nonetheless be able to establish a key relationship.

My main independent variables are history of violence, magnitude of violence, recency of

violence, history of genocide, magnitude of genocide, and recency of genocide. By separating

violence from genocide through these six variables, I will be able to distinguish if genocide has a

unique relationship to my dependent variable, differing from the effect of violence as a whole. I

will also apply control variables to my regressions. To measure the impact of economic factors

on corruption, I will use data on GDP per capita from the World Bank. Rather than using data on

democracy to measure the impact of political factors, I will be looking at three different variables

using data from the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators: government effectiveness, rule

of law, and regulatory quality. However, instead of looking at the effects of these indicators as

separate controls, I will combine them into one variable.

There is logic to combining these variables because collectively; the three of them can

speak about a specific country’s quality of governance in a particular year beyond the

consideration of whether a country is a democracy or not. Countries independent of regime type

can be good for indicators such as rule of law or government capacity, naturally decreasing

control of corruption. While democracy is important, the control I have created instead is not

worse than controlling for regime type, and in fact may be better.

To operationalize my variables, I will look at data from 1996-2019 on twenty-three Asian

countries. To measure history of violence I will conduct research mainly using a report from The

Asia Foundation called “The State of Conflict and Violence in Asia” (Barron, et al., 2017). While

this report critically analyzes a history of conflict in Asian countries as early as the nineteenth

century in some cases, I will focus specifically on civil conflicts that have produced mass deaths

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in the second half of the twentieth century. For every country that has a history of violence, I will

assign it a value of 1. For every country that does not have a history of violence, I will assign it a

value of 0. I will do this manually. I will be looking mainly at a history of civil war, or other civil

conflicts that have produced deaths of over 10,000 people or more. Furthermore, I will not be

including deaths from international wars (ex. The Korean War), as I hypothesize that the civic

component of other violent conflicts will have a unique effect on corruption. This is where my

data may be limited, as many Asian countries have a history of violent events that have led to

displacement or imprisonment of tens to hundreds of thousands of people.

To measure magnitude of violence, I will use data from The Asia Foundation report to

calculate the number of people that were lost during a violent event (2017). From this data, I will

calculate the proportion of deaths as a percentage of the total population of a country the year the

conflict ended. For example, if a conflict ended in 1979, I would divide the total number of

deaths by the total population of the country in 1979. To measure recency of violence I will

calculate how many years have passed in a given year since the conflict ended. Using the

previous example, if a conflict ended in 1979 and I am looking at the year 1996, “recency”

would be seventeen years.

I will follow a similar process to measure my genocide variables. Measuring history of

genocide also presented conceptual challenges. While the UN provides a nuanced definition of

genocide, some events are not universally accepted as a genocide. For example, while some

scholars argue that the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) in Cambodia committed genocide against its

population, others argue that since victims were targeted based on class, it should not be defined

as such (Owens, 2014). Thus, this is where my research may also be limited. Furthermore, the

exact number of deaths that genocides have produced are variable. For example, while some

22

scholars calculate the death toll of the genocide in Bangladesh at 3 million, some have estimated

the toll at 500,000. For the purpose of my study, I will use the upper death tolls of these atrocities

to remain consistent when measuring magnitude of genocide. I will measure recency of genocide

the same way as I did for recency of violence.

These independent variables and controls will then be applied to my dependent variable,

which is corruption. To measure corruption, I will use the World Bank’s control of corruption

indicator to collect corruption data between 1996-2019. To test my hypothesis, I will run separate

multivariate regressions to test the relationship between each independent variable (with the

applied controls) and control of corruption. As I previously mentioned, my results, which I will

explore in my analysis section of this paper, further justify the use of my Cambodian case study

as my findings highlight the how genocide—compared to violence in general—has a unique

effect when applied to my dependent variable of corruption.

I. Case Selection: Cambodia (Single Case Selection)

The Cambodian case is especially relevant to illustrate this model. While the Cambodian

Genocide (1975-1979) is a rather unique case of mass violence compared to the international and

civil wars that occurred in East Asia during the same period, I argue that it represents the Asian

region well as a whole, considering it shares a similar dynastic and communist history with its

neighbors. Ultimately, the Cambodian case serves to illustrate how the specific style of violence

that occurred within in the state (i.e., mass killings in general sites and the process of genocide)

impacts corruption as opposed to ideological warfare, interstate war, or general civil war. The

contributions of my project will be to better define how genocide functions and impacts a state’s

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ability to transition after violence, and how a state’s institutions and international relations post-

conflict all impact the levels of corruption in an Asian regime.

A qualitative analysis will apply a case that arguably failed to address its history of

violence to suit the needs of an already unstable regime and of its own people. Applying my

findings from quantitative research will allow me to illustrate what exactly went wrong in the

Cambodian case, extending current literature on international intervention, aid, post-conflict

theory, etc. However, there are certain drawbacks of using single case studies. Single case studies

may be generalizable and are not as valuable to theory testing than other methods due to this

flaw. Nevertheless, there are benefits to this method as my project has already developed a

theory, and Cambodia provides a compelling argument that supports my empirical findings.

II. Analysis and Findings

Quantitative Analysis and Findings

As previously mentioned, I ran a series of multivariate regressions—a statistical method

that allows us to see the impact of several independent variables on a single dependent

variable—to analyze the quantitative portion of my research. My first model looks at three

different independent variables relating to violence: history of violence (labeled hist_v),

magnitude of violence (labeled magnitude), and recency of violence (labeled recency). My

second model subsequently tests three separate independent variables relating to genocide:

history of genocide (labeled hist_gen), magnitude of genocide (labeled gen_mag), and recency of

genocide (labeled gen_rec). My control variables are GDP per capita (labeled gdp_percap) and

what I call ‘cntrl_avg,’ which as I mentioned in my methods section, combines and averages

24

three different governance indicators (government effectiveness, rule of law and regulatory

quality).

Some research suggests that violence maintains a negative relationship to corruption

levels (Andvig, 2007; Lindberg & Orjuela, 2014; Boucher et al., 2007). However, in East Asia in

the time period that this study covers, combined with the added controls, I have not found

evidence of a statistically significant relationship between these two variables. The results in

Table 1.1 indicate that a history of violence does in fact maintain a negative relationship to

corruption levels, meaning countries in Asia with a history of violence show lower levels of

control of corruption. Nevertheless, when looking at its p-value, history of violence does not

meet the threshold for statistical significance. Thus, I cannot make competent claims about this

relationship applied in a real-world context.

Table 1.1

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Observing the effect of magnitude in Table 1.1, I find dramatically different results. From

my hypothesis, I expected that I would observe a negative relationship between magnitude of

violence and control of corruption, assuming more deaths would lead to higher corruption rates

(or a low control of corruption score). However, I find the opposite result as shown through this

variable’s coefficient: a 1 unit increase in the magnitude of violence scale leads to a 2.03 increase

in control of corruption. This means that as magnitude of violence increases, states will exert

more control over corruption. Even more surprisingly, this variable maintains a statistically

significant relationship to control of corruption as well. I can therefore conclude that this variable

still matters when applied to my dependent variable but illustrates a limit in my research as it

does not support my hypothesis.

These findings could be driven by the way I operationalized magnitude of violence based

on my parameters and the specificity of the conflicts I chose to include. Also possible is that

some of the countries in the analysis that currently experience lower levels of corruption for the

region but have a history of violent conflict with multiple casualties, such as South Korea, may

be driving this result. The final variable that I tested to measure the effect of was recency. The

results in Table 1.1 generally support my hypothesis as the relationship between the recency of a

violent conflict maintains a negative relationship to control of corruption. Nevertheless, this

model is also unreliable as it lacks statistical significance.

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Table 1.2

That being said, I am finding unequivocal evidence on the effects of genocide. Table 1.2

illustrates three different models applying my genocide variables (and the same control variables

as the previous models) to the same dependent variable (control of corruption). For all three

variables, I find a negative, statistically significant relationship. This means that these three

variables matter and should all be considered when looking at their effects on corruption levels in

a real-world context. Looking at the results from both tables, every R² value—which indicate

how well my model fits—are all pretty similar in value and are very strong, ranging from 0.836

to 0.847. However, one model clearly explains these relationships more than the other. The

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genocide models (Table 1.2) provide stronger, more statistically significant evidence in support

of my theoretical explanations than my violence models (Table 1.1). This brings me to my most

important contribution to my paper: that history, magnitude, and recency of genocide have a

unique effect on control of corruption different from a general history of violence.

Qualitative Analysis and Application

Now, in order to flesh out the specific causal mechanisms that translate history of

genocide, magnitude, etc. into higher corruption, I will be exploring the critical case study of

Cambodia. The following section of the paper will trace the corruption-prone political and

economic context of the Cambodian genocide (1975-1979). I am starting by providing a

summary table connecting my independent variables to specific short term and long-term

outcomes pertaining to corruption.

History, Recency and Magnitude

• History of Genocide: Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979)

• Magnitude of Genocide: 3 million deaths

• Recency of Genocide: 42 years

Short-Term Contextual

Effects

• Targeted depletion of pre-genocidal regime human capital

• Strategic non-intervention by international actors

Long-Term Contextual Effects

• 1990s-2010s: Khmer Rouge-controlled and inspired incompetent and corrupt governance

• Delayed international pressure for justice which perpetuates the old wounds and civil distrust of government on a societal level

• Lack of civil associations, lack of activism, suppression, electoral authoritarianism

Specific Manifestations of Corruption from

Contextual Effects

• Political Corruption: 1997 Grenade Attack, Bribery and Promotions

• Land Administration: Brigade 70 is financed by illegal logging syndicates fueled by the maintenance of corrupt transactions

• Nepotism: In 2018, anticorruption NGO Global Witness claimed that the prime minister's family benefited from ownership stakes in firms worth over $200 million

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History, Recency and Magnitude: Introduction of The Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979)

The Cambodian Genocide took place between 1975-1979 at the hands of an armed wing

of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) known as the Khmer Rouge. On April 17, 1975,

Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia, fundamentally altering the state and countryside by

establishing a new, repressive regime. Led by Pol Pot, Cambodia evolved into a “prison camp

state” as the Khmer Rouge pursued a brutal agenda to turn the country into a classless, agrarian

society (Kiernan, 2012, pp. 74). Throughout this period, the Khmer Rouge destroyed urban life

by evacuating cities, clearing out Buddhist monasteries, and closing schools, factories, libraries

and hospitals. They “abolished money and wages…freedom of the press, movement, worship,

organization, association, and discussion” (pp. 74). Subsequently, the regime began targeting

citizens, pursuing violent measures that resulted in genocide.

By eliminating those seen as enemies to the Cambodian state, those who had not

mobilized under the CPK were compelled to join and commit atrocities to defend themselves due

to fear of becoming victims themselves. An estimated 1.5 million to 3 million Cambodians—a

quarter of its population—died from the transition into an agrarian socialist state either from

starvation or execution. 42 years later, the Khmer Rouge’s legacy continues to impact Cambodia

as the country struggles to recover from the short-term and long-term effects of the genocide.

These effects now largely manifest as specific forms of corruption starting at the highest level of

government.

Short-Term Contextual Effects

a. The targeted depletion of pre-genocidal regime capital

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During the genocide, as part of the regime’s program of social engineering, the Khmer

Rouge facilitated the formation of a ranked Cambodian society; the CPK categorized the

population into two different class groups, making it easier to identify and target citizens to

mobilize, imprison, or execute. I identify this systemic violence as the first short-term contextual

effect of the genocide: the targeted depletion of pre-genocidal regime capital.

Members of Cambodian society were organized under two categories, widely known as

the ‘New People’ and the ‘Base People’ (Owens, 2014). The New People were categorized as

those seen as having any foreign influence; the group was comprised of artists, intellectuals and

urban populations, as well as non-Khmer ethnic groups consisting mainly of the Vietnamese and

the Cham. The Base People were mainly rural peasants “uncontaminated by foreign

influence…who would serve as the raw human materials for the CPK’s social revolution”

(Owens, 2014, p. 413). By ranking the population, the CPK forced the New People into

agricultural labor camps with the Base People without “wages, rights, or leisure time” (Kiernan,

2004, p. xxv). The rural population consequently doubled, and tens of thousands died from

starvation in these regions in the name of agrarian socialism.

Furthermore, by the spring of 1976, the Khmer Rouge became increasingly repressive,

targeting “officials seen as moderate or disobedient [to] consolidate centralized political control”

(Owens, 2014, p. 413). As their power depended largely on their anti-Vietnamese and anti-

foreign cause, the CPK began to target dissidents, labeling these Cambodians as “traitors” and

“Khmer bodies with Vietnamese minds” (Kiernan, 2004, p. xi). As these violent and repressive

measures heightened, the Khmer Rouge began to recruit common people to fight and kill in their

cause; many of these recruits to the CPK—which consisted of both children and adults—felt they

had no choice, as the Khmer Rouge fostered a “kill or be killed” mentality (Owens, 2014, p.

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416). Class and ethnicity drove these victimizations, and due to this specific targeting of

individuals based on these classifications, the Khmer Rouge pursued what is defined as genocide

to further centralize their control over Cambodia.

Other than the obvious significance that these deadly procedures eradicated nearly a

quarter of Cambodia’s population, this intentional, targeted and systemic organization of society

also meant that the state was “left [with] few educated people capable of running effective

governance institutions once the regime fell” (Johnson, 2014, pp. v). Presumably, Cambodia

would have to rely on international intervention to reconstruct its damaged state. Although these

atrocities did not go unnoticed by the international community while the Khmer Rouge was in

power, it was still not until 1979 that international forces invaded Cambodia, and even then,

peace was not on the agenda for those who were aware of Cambodia’s struggle until the next few

decades.

b. Strategic non-intervention by international actors

Victims of the genocide were repeatedly ignored by the international community

throughout the decade following the Khmer Rouge’s decline within the Cambodian government.

This strategic non-intervention by international actors is the second short-term contextual effect

of the genocide. Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in January 1979, finally forcing the

Khmer Rouge out of Cambodian territory. Although “a much less repressive regime was

established with Hun Sen, first as Foreign Minister, and then as Prime Minister from 1985

onward,” the international community initially did not recognize the new Cambodian

government as a legitimate regime, instead favoring the Khmer Rouge due to exogenous political

interests (Kiernan, 2012, pp. 86). Because Vietnam assumed control and established this new

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regime in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge continued to maintain power enforced by the

international community.

As Cold War struggles continued to impact international relations globally, the Khmer

Rouge quickly found allies as it retreated to the Thai border. The group “received support from

Thailand, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and others for the next

decade” as these countries developed an interest in the group to help de-stabilize Vietnamese

control within Cambodia (Human Rights Watch, 2009). For example, “the US led a broad

international embargo on Cambodia, depriving a population that had survived inconceivable

violence” in an attempt to de-legitimize the new regime (Human Rights Watch, 2009). The US

viewed the Khmer Rouge as the only legitimate political actor in Cambodia at the time as they

could support their initiatives to remove Vietnamese communist influence from Southeast Asia.

As a result, the Khmer Rouge also maintained their seat in the UN General Assembly, despite the

widespread foreign acknowledgement of the party’s atrocities committed between 1975-1979

(Oberdorfer, 1980). Consequently, the Khmer Rouge maintained significant political and military

influence in Cambodia and neighboring countries, stalling any process of healing, and

contributing to more violence in the region throughout the decades that followed.

Long-Term Contextual Effects

c. Delayed international pressure for justice which perpetuates old wounds and civil

distrust of government on a societal level

Strategic non-intervention and the international support of the Khmer Rouge also

impacted any prospect of justice for Cambodians, further fragmenting the sociopolitical

landscape of the country post-genocide. In 1985, Benjamin Whitaker, the UN’s Special

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Rapporteur on genocide, described the Khmer Rouge regime as “genocide ‘even under the most

restricted definition’” (Kiernan, 2012, pp. 87). Nevertheless, legal organizations around the

world ignored requests to further investigate the violence in Cambodia. Only a few “voluntary”

groups continued to pressure leaders around the world to host a trial for Khmer Rouge leaders for

their crimes against humanity (87). It was not until the 1990s—a decade after the Khmer Rouge

first left Cambodia—that the international community began to implement formal steps for

peacebuilding.

The 1991 Paris Peace Agreements (PPA) “created the first large multinational UN

peacekeeping mission of the post-Cold War era” (McGrew & Worden, 2017). The mission was

called the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) and had the goal of

ending armed conflict and organizing democratic elections in Cambodia (Human Rights Watch,

2015). Although elections did take place in 1993, the policies of the PPA did not include holding

the Khmer Rouge accountable. In the years that followed, negotiations halted and resumed

repeatedly, further stalling the process to establish a functional tribunal. An official tribunal was

finally created in 2006; but the majority of the judges that were appointed to lead this justice

initiative were “appointed and controlled” by Cambodian courts, suggesting that government

interference in these trials would be inevitable due to the lack of independence within the

country’s judiciary (Human Rights Watch, 2014). As of today, only three trials have been

completed, and other Khmer Rouge leaders that should have stood trial have died, leaving the

Cambodian people without proper closure from the genocide that occurred decades before these

trials commenced.

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d. 1985-2010s: Khmer Rouge-controlled and inspired incompetent and corrupt

governance

While delayed international intervention greatly impacted Cambodia’s ability to pursue

justice against the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, justice was also complicated by internal political

conflicts and actors within the state. This leads me to a second long-term contextual effect of the

genocide: Khmer Rouge-controlled and inspired incompetent and corrupt governance. This

incompetence is largely reflected through the leadership of Cambodia’s Prime Minister—a

former member of the Khmer Rouge himself.

In 1985, former Khmer Rouge member Hun Sen assumed the role of Cambodia’s Prime

Minister under the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) after serving as Foreign Minister under the

Vietnamese-controlled Cambodian state. In accordance with the constitution of the new People’s

Republic of Kampuchea’s (PRK), Hun Sen gained control over the state’s “armed forces, police

and other security units…[which] placed him in charge of national defense and domestic

security” (Adams, 2019). During this period until the early 1990s, the PRK regime was largely

concerned with targeting opposition groups, imprisoning political dissidents; consequently, the

country during this period developed into a police state. Although the CPP made attempts to

establish a one-party state, these efforts were soon threatened by the arrival of the United Nations

Transitional Authority (UNTAC) in 1993. In preparation for one of the largest international

peacebuilding efforts in history, the CPP under Hun Sen continued to “attack, threaten, and

intimidate” opposing political parties that would run against them in the UNTAC-administered

elections (Adams, 2012).

The formation of UNTAC would have been a hopeful step to establish peace and

reconciliation in Cambodia, however, it only fueled more violent tactics by Hun Sen and the

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CPP. Parts of UNTAC’s mission were indeed successful; in 1993, UNTAC facilitated

Cambodia’s first free parliamentary elections where FUNCIPEC, Cambodia’s royalist party, won

the majority. However, following the vote, Hun Sen exerted his “control over the security forces

to coerce FUNCIPEC into sharing power with the CPP,” re-establishing Hun Sen’s control over

the state (Piano & Puddington, 2004, pp. 109). In the years that followed, this power-sharing

agreement deteriorated as the CPP, backed by Cambodia’s army and police, continued to harass

members of opposition groups, including members of its other coalition party.

In addition to Hun Sen’s power over Cambodia’s security forces, the Prime Minister also

controls the state’s judicial institutions. Establishing this control is one the main reasons Hun Sen

maintained power since 1985. Human Rights Watch 2015 report on the Prime Minister stated:

“Hun Sen and the CPP have made continued control of the courts a priority for

complementary reasons: to ensure they are not used against them for human rights

abuses, corruption or other offenses, and to have them as a weapon when they want

to attack or send a message to the opposition or critics. Politically, investigations

and trials for Khmer Rouge crimes could risk exposing the actions he and other

former Khmer Rouge in the CPP took during the Khmer Rouge period” (Human

Rights Watch, 2015).

This power over Cambodia’s judiciary, coupled with the delayed international pressure to

bring justice to genocide criminals, has created an incompetent political and civic environment

within the country. Political figures, as well as bureaucrats, are able to maintain corrupt practices

and abusive power over civilians reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge era. Those opposed to Hun

35

Sen and CPP are punished, killed, or jailed, leaving any prospect for political and social change

very limited.

e. Lack of civil associations, lack of activism, suppression, electoral authoritarianism

Due to the CPP’s total control over Cambodia’s institutions, civil society in the country is

largely characterized by a lack of civil associations, a lack of activism, suppression, and electoral

authoritarianism. Aggression towards civil society is historically characteristic of the Hun Sen

regime, also reflecting similar policies implemented during the Khmer Rouge regime. The

Freedom House (2020) report gave Cambodia a score 1 out of 4 (where 4 is ‘free’ and 0 is ‘not

free’) in freedom of assembly, citing that “authorities are openly hostile to free assembly,”

particularly against supporters of political opposition to the CPP (Freedom House, 2020). Hun

Sen and the CPP’s control of security forces enforces this coercive relationship between police

and civil society. Freedom House (2004), in a summary of an Amnesty International report,

stated that security forces are “able to impose their will on the civilian population and commit

violations, safe in the knowledge that they will never be called into account for their actions”

(Piano & Puddington, 2004, pp. 111). For example, in 2019, Cambodia’s security forces, under

the control of Hun Sen, “interfered with public assemblies and demonstrations” that were held to

pay homage to Kem Ley, an activist and commentator that was murdered three years prior

(Freedom House, 2020). Security forces arrested three participants who were visiting the location

of his death, charging one with “incitement to commit a felony” (2020).

In the same report, Cambodia scored a 1 out of 4 for free and independent media.

Suppression is high in the country, as the government regularly uses intimidation tactics on

independent media. Freedom House (2020) states that the CPP “uses lawsuits, criminal

36

prosecutions, massive tax bills, and occasionally violent attacks” against these outlets, and most

private broadcasters are owned and operated by the CPP (2020). International media sources are

even more restricted; journalists from abroad have been arrested and convicted with charges as

high as espionage. In 2018, a Malaysian businessman with ties to Hun Sen took over the Phnom

Penh Post. This media outlet, according to Freedom House (2019), was considered “the last

remaining independent media outlet in Cambodia” (Freedom House, 2019). Many of its editors

and former employees were terminated, and the sale came before the 2018 elections in the state.

These restrictions and hostility towards civil society also contribute to electoral

authoritarianism within the country. As I previously mentioned, Hun Sen and the CPP have a

history of interfering with elections as early as the UNTAC administered elections in the 1990s.

This pattern has only continued and has escalated; a 2018 news article claimed that Cambodia is

on the track to becoming a one-party state (Boyle, 2018). This is likely, as many opposition

parties are banned, and members of these parties have been charged with treason. Furthermore,

in the 2018 lower house election, there was a high rate of spoiled ballots, suggesting “strong

popular discontent with the lack of choice” (Freedom House, 2020). Nevertheless, many of these

restrictions to opposition are legal; in 2015, the state passed elections laws giving power to

security forces to “take part in campaigns [and] punish parties that boycott parliament” (2020).

As a result, the CPP dominates parliament, as they won every seat in both chambers in the 2018

elections.

Specific Manifestations of Corruption from Long-Term Contextual Effects

The examples above of a restricted civil society, the CPP’s control of institutions, and a

delayed pressure for justice for Cambodia’s genocide criminals are all highly corrupt in nature.

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In this final section of my critical case study of Cambodia, I will highlight specific

manifestations of corruption that have developed from these long-term contextual effects.

Corruption and Hun Sen’s Rise to Power

Corruption under Hun Sen has been reinforced since the beginning of his career. The

years and events that followed the Khmer Rouge’s decline were marked by instability in the

political and economic sphere. Hun Sen’s control over powerful institutions and civil society,

combined with weak international pressure following UNTAC’s departure, all have contributed

to the specific manifestations of corruption we see in Cambodia today.

In 1997, resistance against the CPP increased within Cambodian civil society, threatening

the party’s potential success in the following 1998 elections. Despite efforts from the coalition

government to silence protestors, journalists, and other party members, around 200 anti-

government protesters mobilized near the National Assembly on March 30, 1997 (Adams, 2015).

These protestors were soon attacked with grenades and were met with violent resistance from

Cambodia’s security forces. Many were injured and at least 16 people died. Because one of the

victims was a United States citizen, the FBI launched an investigation into the attacks, but the

Cambodian authorities resisted and provided no cooperation to assist in the punishment of the

attack’s perpetrators.

Although the investigation was ultimately abandoned, the FBI was still able to link a few

individuals to the attack. Among those implicated were Huy Piseth and Hing Bun Heang—two

members of the Prime Minister’s personal Bodyguard Unit known as Brigade 70. Although this

information was accessible to the Cambodian government, instead of punishing these

individuals, the CPP under Hun Sen later awarded Huy Piseth and Hing Bun Hean with high-

38

level promotions (2015). Huy Piseth was promoted to undersecretary of the state at the Ministry

of Defense, and Hing Bun Heang was promoted to deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian

Armed Forces. Both have maintained their positions in Brigade 70.

Later that year, before the 1998 elections, Hun Sen attempted to gain full control over

parliament, despite the CPP’s power-sharing agreement with FUNCIPEC. Human Rights Watch

(2015) reports that Hun Sen bribed members of the coalition party to “replace Ranariddh as party

leader and first prime minister” but was ultimately unsuccessful as he could not convince enough

people to defect (2015). As a result, Hun Sen staged a coup d’état using the force of military

factions and his personal Bodyguard Unit to gain control of the government and ensure the

CPP’s victory in the 1998 elections. Today, Hun Sen is the 5th-longest serving leader in the

world, and his power has only grown stronger with corruption levels in the country becoming

increasingly more severe (Johnson, 2014).

Nepotism

Although the United Nations regards nepotism as a form of corruption, the Cambodian

government has not made strides to include it in its own anti-corruption laws. Nepotism

characterizes the Cambodian government at every level. The Hun family dominance over

Cambodia has increased throughout Hun Sen’s career, as the Prime Minister has situated

different relatives in government positions and has strengthened relationships with elites through

various marriage arrangements of his children (Global Witness, 2016). Global Witness (2016)

reports that Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet, maintains four different positions in the state:

deputy commander of his father’s Bodyguard Unit, deputy chairman of the Royal Cambodian

Armed Forces Joint Staff, deputy commander of the army and commander of Cambodia’s

39

counter-terrorism force (2016). His second-eldest son also holds a position in the military, and of

his six children, “five have been married off in politically auspicious arrangements” (Strangio,

2014, pp. 135). These elite connections strengthen the Hun family’s control over the state, the

economy, and other influential institutions and has become a “hegemonic control that has formed

a stranglehold over the democratic space and corrupted the country’s legal system” (Global

Witness, 2007, pp. 4).

International organizations have also become concerned with the amount of wealth the

Prime Minister has amassed over his 36-year career. Although Hun Sen only makes a

government salary of USD 15,000 a year, Freedom House (2020) and Global Witness (2016)

report that the family has accumulated over USD 200 million through various business stakes

(Freedom House, 2020; Global Witness, 2016). Due to media suppression within Cambodia, this

data was not easily accessible, and may understate the actual amount the Hun family is worth.

The report estimates that the family’s business holdings range across twenty different economic

sectors—the majority of them corrupt in nature already. As I explain in the following section, the

Hun family’s dominance in these corrupt sectors only serves to reinforce a cycle that has brutal

implications for the country’s population.

Illegal Logging and Land Grabbing

Cambodia’s corruption problem in its environmental and natural resource sector is

partially maintained through its vast illegal logging network. Corruption opportunities in this

sector are reinforced by bureaucratic and grand corruption as state agencies engage in illicit

transactions to increase their personal wealth in exchange for protecting various operations from

prosecution (Global Witness, 2007). The problem has intensified to the extent that areas with a

40

high concentration of logging syndicates, such as the Kompong Thom Province, are “seen as a

choice posting for civil servants and members of the security forces” as the potential to extort

these illegal operations is highly likely (pp. 60). The government further reinforces this activity

by underreporting the country’s forest cover; Johnson (2014) notes that while the government

reported 57 per cent cover in 2010, maps indicated that it was much lower, closer to 46.3 per cent

(Johnson, 2014). Because the institutions in charge of protecting and maintaining this land

benefits from this illegal activity, Cambodia is suffering from a massive deforestation problem.

On a grander scale, Hun Sen’s private Bodyguard Unit, Brigade 70, is also financed by

these illegal syndicates. According to the 2007 Global Witness Report, Hun Sen’s Brigade 70

transported around “1,260 m³ illegally-logged timber per week” (pp. 8). The officer in charge,

General Hak Mao, makes roughly USD 1.2 million per year from these operations, and the rest

of the profits finance the remaining members of the unit. Furthermore, a cut is also given to Hing

Bun Heang—the commander of Hun Sen’s Bodyguard Unit, and one of the members implicated

in the 1997 Grenade Attack who was promoted despite his involvement in the violence. Not a

single member of Brigade 70 has been prosecuted for these crimes, and the injustice that prevails

is further reflective of Hun Sen’s control over the legal system and the economy.

Additionally, the country also suffers from a land grabbing problem which further

maintains corruption in this sector. During the Khmer Rouge period, millions of people were

forced off of their lands; consequently, many citizens today do not have official documentation

of their property. As a result, the government is able to seize the land and force evictions largely

for their own private gain. Hun Sen’s business empire in the private sector and his companies’

operations “have caused mass displacements among Cambodia’s rural poor” (Global Witness,

2016, pp. 8). In 2007, 4,000 families were evicted from their land at Boeung Kak Lake;

41

subsequently, the CPP-ruled government “awarded the occupied land to the company owned by a

ruling party Senator” (Johnson, 2014, pp. 44). Corruption in this sector, as it is in most other

sectors, is layered, and has a tremendous impact on Cambodian society.

III. Conclusion

In this paper I have identified significant findings both in my quantitative and qualitative

analysis about the nature and dynamic of mass violence and its effects on corruption levels in

East Asia. From my quantitative research and analysis, I find that genocide has a unique effect on

present-day levels of corruption in Cambodia and East Asian societies, different from general

forms of political violence, such as international and civil wars. I argue that these are important

innovations; methodologically, my findings hold even with different operationalizations of my

independent variables. Genocide, even when measured through recency, magnitude, and

incidence, maintains a statistically significant relationship to corruption.

Furthermore, I developed a valuable control variable that looks at quality of governance

over regime type to measure the political explanations that may drive corruption. Scholars found

that regime type is not a very consistent variable when applied to corruption; while democracy

may drive low corruption levels, not much changed when they looked at authoritarian regimes

when freedom levels or “democracy levels” and factors increased within these regimes. By

creating a new control through combining three different indicators (rule of law, government

effectiveness, and regulatory quality) I have created a more nuanced definition of quality of

governance and its effects on variables such as corruption independent of regime type.

42

Theoretically, my research provides at least two main innovations: First, I have found that

genocide specifically, as opposed to terrorism, international war, civil war, etc. is unique when

applied to corruption. It is this type of violence that has an effect on corruption in East Asia and

is applicable to real-world contexts in the period I researched. Through these findings, I

developed a model that I could then apply to a critical case study of Cambodia. From this case

study, I identified three specific manifestations of corruption in the state:

1) Corruption perpetrated by Cambodia’s Prime Minister through bribery and the

promotion of lower officials in exchange for power and military support,

2) Nepotism maintained and enforced by Cambodia’s Prime Minister that further

enforces corrupt transactions in the country’s economic sectors and creates political

conflicts of interest and,

3) Corruption in Cambodia’s environmental sector that is maintained by bureaucrats

and upper-ranking officials who engage in illicit transactions to line their own

pockets and finance the Prime Minister’s personal Bodyguard Unit and other

economic and political ventures.

Second, my literature review and my own research show the incredible propensity of

violence during the Cold War Period. This is significant because historians and political scientists

regard this period as a time of relative peace due to its bipolarity and because we avoided a

devastating conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. Although the world avoided a ‘great

power’ war, millions of people still died as a consequence of the fears and ideologies that

developed from this time. My paper theoretically raises awareness of the Euro and American-

centric misguided view of peace in the second half of the twentieth century. Of course, from a

utilitarian perspective, avoiding a great power war was extremely important; but if you explained

43

this period as a peaceful era to genocide regimes in Asia and all over the world, I doubt they

would share this same perspective.

This is seminal research because until now, not many scholars have been willing to

disentangle the various effects, especially in areas of corruption, of different types of violence.

While I only analyzed a single case study, I nevertheless established a key relationship between

my variables. This may serve as a guiding point for future researchers interested in the Asian

region who want to further explore the important impact that genocide has on political and

economic institutions, and corrupt transactions that occur within them. Furthermore, this research

may have potential policy implications, especially in international law and development. My

research helps shed a different light from the obvious that in addition to human tragedy, genocide

has terrible consequences on government efficiency, which I find is corruption. The international

community should have even more reasons to intervene now, especially if outside actors want to

provide regional stability to developing or suffering states. Thus, in terms of policy, genocide can

be seen as an economic policy issue as well as a development issue. Genocide impacts economic

inefficiency, political dysfunction, and lack of development, and should be viewed as ‘bad’

beyond the fact that millions died.

44

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