i
Grassroots Civil Society in Cambodia
by
William A. Collins, Ph.D.
Center for Advanced Study,
Phnom Penh
A discussion paper prepared
for a workshop organized by
Forum Syd and Diakonia in
September 1998.
FINAL REPORT
November 1998
Grassroots Civil Society in
Cambodia
by
Willaim A. Collins, Ph.D.
Center for Advanced Study,
Phnom Penh
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The paper reports on a
research project concerning actors and activities in grassroots civil society
in Cambodia that was aimed to contribute to a discussion of indigenous
democratic processes and resources.
After a discussion of the
concept of civil society, a contrast is drawn between two paradigms in
development and governance issues at the grassroots. One is a State centered
bureaucratic approach. The other is a Wat centered self-help approach. The
contrast of these paradigms highlights the issue of the objectives and
effectiveness of external assistance in the Cambodian context and might provide
lessons for programs contemplated in the areas of democracy and good
governance.
A detailed discussion of Wat
centered organization and activities based in civil society follows. The
discussion highlights the roles and expectations for leaders in the Wat and
parish, the appeals leaders make to generate internal resources and the public
governance functions that these actors serve. A distinctive web of checks and
balances is described within which the Wat Committee operates both in regard to
decision making and financial management.
The importance of humility
and a reputation for moral integrity in effective leadership is described. The
significance of transitory, situational authority at the grassroots (the
mekhyal, gleader of the windh) is examined. The cultural value of participation
in a moral community is shown to be the basis for grassroots civil society in
Cambodia. The legitimacy of impermanent, task specific leaders and the
ever-changing network of people forming a Wat-centered parish in rural
Cambodian civil society contrast sharply with the notion of office-holding in a
hierarchy of distinct territorial jurisdictions that comprise the state.
A number of questions are
raised for discussion concerning the relations between the state and the Wat in
the present context in Cambodia and concerning the consequences of the tension
between them on the evolution of issues related to democracy building.
by
Willaim A. Collins, Ph.D.
Center for Advanced Study,
Phnom Penh
1. Scope and Focus of the Study
This study originated in an
expression of interest by Forum Syd and Diakonia in learning more about the
indigenous social practices in Cambodia that might be significant to Forum Syd
and Diakonia in implementing their mandates to strengthen democracy. More
specifically, Forum Syd Diakonia wished to gain an understanding of formal and
informal activities in rural Cambodia that might reflect strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats related to democracy-building issues.
Forum Syd and Diakonia
wanted to raise the question about where Cambodian democracy might be going in
the next ten to twenty years1. The aim
of the donors was to consider how working with democracy issues in Cambodia
could be made more relevant to actualities. The donors hoped to stimulate a
discussion about what approach to democracy building might best promote
participation and empowerment at the grassroots. The questions Forum Syd and
Diakonia wanted to consider were what might be the consequences of democracy
building efforts, both positive and negative, and what might be the prospects,
opportunities and threats involved for democracy building efforts in civil
society, in its relation to the state, in the present Cambodian context.
2. Methodology
The Center for Advanced
Study researchers have an ongoing interest in the study of village level
society, cultures and political process. CAS proposed a study of grassroots
civil society actors that might serve the donorfs interest and complement other
CAS studies on village conflict resolution, local pagoda governance structures,
ethnic minority issues in Cambodia, studies of rural small business culture and
studies of exploitation of vulnerable rural women.
A CAS team of researchers
with a special interest in ethnography was assembled for this project. The
participants include the author, Mr. Kim Sedara, Mr. Sotheavin, Ms. Ouch
Kankiria Pheakadey, Ms. Hour Amara, and Ms. Heng Chhun Oeurn. The three young
women who participated as junior researchers in this team are students in the
Faculty of Archeology of the Royal University of Fine Art and show great
promise as future anthropologists. Mr. Kim Sedara and Mr. Sotheavin are
graduates from RUFA with considerable experience in social research with CAS.
Mr. Kim Sedara has recently won a Fulbright Award to undertake graduate studies
in anthropology in America.
The research team conducted
unstructured interviews with knowledgeable, often elderly, informants who were
considered influential in their communities, but who were usually not connected
to state duties. In the villages of Siem Reap and Battambang provinces, where
the research was concentrated, an effort was made to obtain interviews with
male and female informants, members of the Buddhist monkhood, nuns and laity,
and prominent members of many local non-governmental organizations operating in
the village.2
3. Relevance
The purpose of this report
on the research was to provide a point of departure for a discussion about the
current state of democracy in Cambodia, just after the July 1998 elections.
This report was initially prepared for a workshop to which a group of human
rights and development NGOs and donor agencies were invited by Forum Syd and
Diakonia. The intention of the study was to stimulate dialogue and exchange of
ideas and experiences to improve cooperation among NGOs involved in democracy
building. Accordingly, the conclusion of the paper was designed as a list of
questions that were raised by the finding of the research and that were relevant
to the discussion aims and intentions of the donors. The workshop on the paper
produced a lively discussion of terms and distinctions appropriate for the
field covered in the study and suggestions about future directions for
democracy building efforts.3
The insightful and
constructive criticism of Joel Charny, the observations of Sonny Östberg and
Sue Davén and the notes on the workshop discussion by Ms. Malin Ericsson were
particularly helpful to me in preparing a revised draft of the paper after the
workshop.
4. Limitations of the Study
Given the limitations of
budget and time, the research team could only conduct intensive study among a
small number of informants in a few communities in the Northwest of Cambodia.4 Our technique of identifying key categories
in the Khmer language to guide the research and analysis has the promise of
uncovering general attitudes in Cambodian society. But it must be acknowledged
that further more extensive research is needed to verify how widespread in
Cambodia the civil society characteristics identified in this paper actually
are.
In view of the aim of this
paper to contribute to an understanding of the present situation for democracy
building efforts, we thought it might be worthwhile to introduce our research
with two preliminary but limited discussions. First, we consider the basic
definitions that guided our study. The team gcivil societyh has become a buzz-
word lately with many different meanings. We begin by explaining our use of the
term for the purposes of this study. It was beyond our scope to promote one or
another view.
Regarding the proper
relation of civil society to the state. That should be a determination for
Cambodians to make in their own country. Second, since democracy building
efforts would seem to involve strategic donor interventions in Cambodian
society, we thought it might prove useful to consider some development
approaches in Cambodia that have significant implications for democracy and
civil society. These development approaches may provide lessons and suggestions
for the specific democracy strengthening interventions Forum Syd and Diakonia
and other donors contemplate. It was not our aim to assess these development
paradigms from the point of view of the effectiveness of their impact on village
economic conditions, nor to decide which, if any, intervention might be most
appropriate for democracy building in the current Cambodian context.
II. Civil Society
1. Definitions and
Distinctions
The key concepts for this
discussion are ggrassrootsh and gcivil societyh. The first term is fairly
straightforward. We take the term literally; our focus is on the rural
countryside where Cambodian farmers, comprising 85% of the population of the
Kingdom, live in peasant communities. Our field visits were made to villages to
identify the significant actors and activities of civil society.
gCivil societyh is a
theoretical construct that has been debated European political discourse for
the last 200 yeas.5 The gcivilh aspect of
society in focus here has to do with the quality of civility or civilized
behavior in the public sphere. This feature of society brings to mind
Schopenhauerfs parable of the porcupines on a cold winter night. The right
distance apart to stay warm and not get stuck by one another is maintained by
what he calls courtesy, the rules of politeness or civility in society.
There are three main issues
in the debate than can be mentioned as an orientation to our study of civil
society in Cambodia.
The first issue has to do
with a distinction between modern and traditional societies. The concept of
gcivil societyh, as thinkers in the Scottish Enlightenment formulated it, meant
to draw attention to a feature of modern society. This large-scale society
involved interactions among relative strangers who could routinely deal with
one another with a degree of confidence and safety. The interactions required a
certain gcivilityh or an expectation of the predictability in dealings with
people with whom one was not well acquainted. Krygier notes that Adam Smith
spoke of gcommercialh or gcivilizedh society to emphasize the plural,
commercial interactions, advanced division of labor, and wide-scale
interdependence of the modern world. Hegel took this meaning into German, and
Marx took it from him.
gCivil societyh, in this
formulation, was meant to contrast with the narrow primordial bonds of family
and kinship, clan and tribe, which were considered characteristic of primitive,
or traditional, small scale, rural societies. Within these traditional
societies, exclusive, particularistic relationships predominated and a
predatory attitude was often taken toward gothersh.
The second issue in the
formulation of the concept of gcivil societyh is that it is distinct from the
state. In modern society, independent actors imbued with a degree of civility
are able to choose to participate and associate with others in cooperative
ventures. This cooperation gives rise to organizations and institutions in the
public realm that are not connected to the state. Krygier points out that Hegel
in Germany and Thomas Paine in England and America stressed the importance of
the distinction between the unifying and centralizing tendencies of the
political rule of the gstateh on one hand, and the pluralistic, freely chosen
associations of a quite separate gcivil societyh, on the other hand.
An important aspect of this
distinction between state and civil society, as Krygier indicates, was famously
discussed by Montesquieu. He argued that independent social bodies, which were
acknowledged in law, served to moderate the tendencies of government toward
despotism. These gintermediaryh social groupings of gcivil societyh like the
Church, that possess or gain a standing of legitimacy in society, have the
ability to restrain and check the power of the centralized state. As such
intermediate civil society groupings defend their legal standing and autonomy,
they advance a dialogue between rulers and society and between social groupings
of civil society. This dialogue contributes to the development of a rule of
law, within which the tendencies to despotism can be confronted.
The third important issue in
the contemporary debate about civil society has to do with the nature of the
relationship between civil society and the state. According to Krygier, some
modern writers, like dissidents in communist regimes, observe that totalitarian
regimes attempt to eliminate an independent civil society. Under these
conditions, civil society is not only distinct from the state but is a vehicle
for struggle against the despotism of the state. Other writers can point to
more advanced societies, like those of Scandinavia for example, where civil
society is acknowledge as historically separate from the state. But in these
societies the partnership between civil society and state is now so close that,
far from being locked in struggle with one another, they fundamentally depend
on one another.
In the Cambodian context,
the evolution of a large-scale society with manifold internal and external
networks of exchange and communications can be traced to the origins Angkor as
one of the ancient gIndianized states of Southeast Asia (the title of a classic
work on southeast Asian history by Georges Codes). In the post-Angkorean era,
probably the most significant process in the development of Cambodian civil
society has been the conversion of the mass of the Khmers to Theravada
Buddhism. This world religion; in a rich syncretism with localized animist
beliefs and practices/provided the elements of a broadly accepted; civility; that
was inclusive; tolerant; pluralistic; rule centered; and rational. Part of the
mass appeal of Theravada Buddhism was probably that it provided a local and
social center for an egalitarian congregation-The new ideology was based in a
universal idiom that was independent of the Brahmanist Mahayana Buddhist royal
cult and aristocratic hierarchy which; since the Angkorean apogee; was in a
process of prolonged decline. Popular Cambodian Buddhism thus seems to bear the
hallmarks of a remarkably modem tendency in providing a context for civil
society by contrast; the traditional and contemporary Cambodian elites and
their dependents; often led by princes; pretenders; usurpers or warlords; seem
to be organized by primordial bonds of family or by particularistic; hierarchical
links of patron and client- These elites typically seem to be driven by narrow
and predatory ambitions for power; privilege an wealth and; in terms of
the arguments about civil society
discussed above ;seem to represent a backward or traditional tendency in
Cambodian society.
As is well known; the communist regimes in Cambodia made every effort to abolish non-state organizations and attachments. The Khmer Rouge tried to remove any intermediary bodies between the individual and the state The PRK endeavored to create state- sponsored organizations; associations and groups to fill the void left by the Khmer Rouge but also to- serve as a substitute for an independent civil society.
As the wounds inflicted by
thirty years of warfare; revolution; civil strife continue to heal the
Cambodian peasantry will attempt to recreate their civil society groupings at
the grassroots. It is only in the last few years; since the Paris Peace
Accords; that state suppression of Buddhism has begun to relax. Now, young men
are permitted to enter the monk hood, assuring the sustainability of Wats as
civil society institutions. Meanwhile, the rebuilding of damaged and neglected
Wats, and the construction of new religious structures all over the country
attests to the place of Buddhism in the sentiments of the Cambodian people,
especially in the rural countryside. The endogenous voluntary cooperative
associations connected to the Wat may also play a significant part in this
resurgence of civil society.
The aid interventions of
International Organizations and Non-Government Organizations in areas of
community development, rural development, public administration, good
governance, human rights, voter education and so on, will also undoubtedly have
a far reaching impact on the evolution of social institutions in Cambodia.
2. Civil Society Groups
Another perspective on civil
society, discussed by Leslie Fox, emphasizes the relations among citizen groups
in a cultural or political context. To consider this aspect of the notion, it
may be useful it picture an area of social space between the State and the
Family. In this space people come together to form associations or activity
groups that comprise the intermediary bodies of civil society. Fox identifies
several features that characterize these associations:
1.
Values.
These groups in civil
society typically share civic or community value, especially a sense of mutual
trust, reciprocity and tolerance among the members included in the group. These
values give rise to an impulse toward group activity that benefits the
community. The group activities associated with agriculture, like dam or
reservoir building or canal maintenance, which serve community economic
interests, might be instance in which the value prevailing in the community
were expressed in the civil society activity of the villagers.
2.
Discourse
Associations typically share
a discourse or a web of public communication that serves as a vehicle for
promoting and sharing the norms and values held by the group. This discourse
includes structured vocabulary, proverbial wisdom, moral injunctions, and
customary formulations, traditional maxims that can be used by the public to
reinforce their solidarity and to call to account the groups members who stray
too far from accepted values. In Cambodia, both the super naturalist cults of
ancestors and spirits and Buddhism provide an important discourse that aids the
formation and preservation of associations in civil society. To speck Khmer
means being able to use language appropriate to the social differences between
the speakers. A shared understanding of the deference accorded to age, or to
clergy, or to rank would be an example of the way discourse is used to
structure activity groups in Cambodian civil society.
3.
Expectations
Civil society groups seem to
emerge from a universal human tendency to form groups to accomplish tasks and
to reach objectives that are beyond the capability of an individual. From one
society to another, quite different common purposes may typically generate the
formation of these groups. In a highland society, for example, vendetta revenge
killings or bride abductions or headhunting between groups may be taken for
granted as primary occasions for civic action. In a neighboring lowland
society, repair of embankments, rice terrace, roads and bridges might be the
expected and familiar basis for group formation and civil society action.
4.
Autonomy
Another important aspect of
civil society is that it is more or less independent of the state. Civil
society groups and actions often seem to grow from extremely localized
concerns. At the same time, civil society associations generally aim to
preserve their particular solutions to local problems and to resist the
large-scale integration and standardization of social life promoted by the
state. Some degree of tension between the state and civil society is central to
their relationship, depending on the local historical circumstances. In
contemporary Cambodia, as anywhere, there might well be a diversity of opinion
about what the proper stance of civil society toward the state should be. But
Cambodiafs unique history of the violent attempt by the Khmer Rouge to
obliterate civil society probably sharpens this debate about the autonomy of a
resurgent civil society.
5.
Organization
While groups in civil
society are much less formal and less structured than state organizations,
there are typically coherent traditional organization features that can be
discerned in these groups. People with certain customary attributes and
attitudes are typically recognized as leaders of these civil society
associations. Appeals that strike certain cultural tones are typically utilized
to form a group and organize action. Characteristic means for mobilizing
resources to accomplish group goals are typically employed.
2. Other Distinct Social
Institution
To get a clearer picture of
the space this civil society occupies, it might be well to mention some other
important social institution that are usually considered to be distinct from
civil society.
The market economy, that
sector of social life where the exchange of goods and services takes place, can
usefully be distinguished from the civil society that is under examination
here. Civil society can be thought of as a dimension of social-political life
between the State and Market, and distinct from both.
Political parties and the
electoral process are fundamental institutions in democratic societies, but can
also be seen as distinct from civil society. Political parties aim to contest
with one another to obtain state power. In contrast, civil society is that
public realm outside the state from which groups and associations may voice
demands for accountability and reforms in the state, with no intention of
replacing the state themselves. The human rights NGOs in Cambodia are examples
of civil society actors performing this kind of demand function.
Civil society may also
include groups and associations that supply public governance functions at a
local level in society, by enforcing customary rules, maintaining traditional
standards of morality and by facilitating participation in action for the
public good. Civil society actors that perform this supply function will be
focus of the present paper.
For the purposes of this
study, our focus during fieldwork was on local, self-governing associations in
village Cambodian society that have traditionally operated out of the control
of the state, in the arena of civil society at the grassroots. Our aim was to
identify the actors and associations in civil society that undertook civic
action or public governance functions from a standpoint outside the state
structures. One purpose of such a focus is to consider the lessons that can be
learned from Cambodian customs and practices that might be relevant to
democracy building in the larger society.
Another purpose of this
focus on endogenous civil society at the grassroots is to raise the question of
where and how external support in this civil society realm might promote
democratic governance at the grassroots, or undermine it.
With these definition
clarified, we can now turn to a brief look at two well-known development
strategies that were designed explicitly to deal with issues of civil society.
There may be lessons to learn from a comparison and contrast of these
strategies that can serve democracy-strengthening efforts. This discussion of
two development models will enable us to move from the abstract discussion of
civil society to our specific fieldwork findings.
The two different
development strategies described below are no doubt familiar to everyone in the
NGO community in Cambodia. This discussion in not intended to provide a
comprehensive picture of the two development programs. My intention is to use
these examples to highlight the boundary between state and civil society and to
indicate alternative solutions that have been presented to the problem of the
proper relationship between these two spheres.
I assume that readers will
agree that rural development issues and local governance issues are
inextricably women together at the grassroots. In a countryside that is
overwhelmingly devoted to agriculture, the kinds of public activities peasants
undertake will typically be related to their primary occupation, which is farming
and petty trade. Accordingly, interventions that are sensitive to issues of g
participation;h which are directed at economic development in rural areas, will
likely also have intended or inadvertent effects on civil society. By
contrasting two well known and well documented intervention strategies, the
UNDP- CARERE-Seila approach and the GTZ Self-help approach, we may be able to
view our village case-study material with greater clarity.
1 The Decentralized Approach
of-UNDP-CARERE-Seila
The Seila approach to
development is described as a gcontrolled policy experimenth that features the
concept of gdecentralizationh In the context of the history of centralized
authority in Cambodia; gdecentralizationh means shifting the center of gravity
of the program from the capital to the province. Nevertheless of the Seila
approach is to strengthen the public administration of the state as regards
development.
From the point of view of
Phnom Penh, gdecentralizationh may be a significant change in development management,
planning and financing. But from the point of view of the grassroots, which is
the concern in this paper, the concept of gdecentralizationh may be a remote
abstraction. From the peasant point of view, whether authorities wielding power
are based in Phnom Penh, or the Provincial capital, or the district, or the
commune or the village, these authorities all operate within the same category,
roat amnaac , the state.
Another important feature of
the controlled policy experiment is to rationalize glevels of responsibilityh
of local administration and to create effective gplanning and financial
systemsh within a new gmanagement structureh that was established by Royal
Decree. A new hierarchical structure from the highest levels of government down
to the village was created. CARD(The Committee on Agriculture and Rural
Development), STF (The Seila Task Force), PRDC (The Provincial Rural
Development Committee). DDC. (The District Development Committee). CDC,(The
commune Development committee), VDC (The Village Development Committee). And
each of these committees has its gterms of referenceh clearly defining the
respective roles and responsibilities of each level in the planning and
management of change
In sociological terms we
recognize this policy experiment as an attempt to move away from traditional
patterns of authority and particularistic loyalties and connections towards a
legal-rational pattern for authority and a bureaucratic model for relationships
typical of complex Western organizations. In political terns ; the experiment
is aimed at devolution of power to decentralized local development actors.
Although the Seila
experiment is being conducted initially in five provincial, the objective is to
provide a gdecentralizedh bureaucratic model and a system of capacity building
that can be applied through the state.
cthe Seila programme will
concentrate on developing the provincial systems and
structures required and
clarify the roles and responsibilities of the local government
structure. Once this
clarification has been achieved considerable emphasis will be
placed on building the
capacity of local government institution through a targeted
approach which will focus
specific attention on those government officials and civil
servants who have the most
critical tasks in managing the Seila programmec. The
capacity building objective of the programme in the area of governance is
described as follows:
cto raise awareness and
provide training in good governance principles and
practices for province,
district, commune and village officials and committees in
order to support the
regeneration of a strong civil society in partnership with
government.
The character of the
gpartnershiph contemplated between civil society and the state at the
grassroots is the aspect of the
experiment that is most significant for the purposes of our study.
The expression of the Seila
experiment at the grassroots level is the VDC (Village Development Committee).
Within the new management structure,
The village Development
Committee is mandated to represent the village to
government, to other
civil associations and local agencies as well as to international
agencies in planning and
managing their own process of village development.
Although the Seila
experiment is being conducted initially in five provinces, the objective is to
provide a gdecentralizedh bureaucratic model and a system of capacity building
that can be applied throughout the state .
cthe
seila programme will concentrate
on developing the provincial system and
structures
required and clarify the roles and responsibilities of the local government
structures .
Once this clarification has been achieved considerable emphasis will be
placed on
building the capacity of local government institutions through a targeted
which will
focus specific attention on those government officials and civil servants
have the
most critical tasks in managing the Seila programmec.
The capacity building
objective of the programme in the area of governance is described as follows
cto raise awareness
and provide training in good governance principle and practice
for province,
district. commune and village officials and committees in order to
support the
regeneration of a strong civil society in partnership with government.
The character of the
gpartnershiph contemplated between civil society and the state at the
grassroots is the aspect of the experiment that is most significant for the
purposes of our study.
The expression of the Seila
experiment at the grassroots level is the VDC (Village Development Committee).
within the new management structure,
The Village Development Committee is
mandated to represent the village to
government, to other civil
associations and local agencies as well as to international
agencies in planning their own
process of village development.
The VDC is created to be an
elected body that is recognized by the Royal Government and by the Seila
management structure in the province as,
can autonomous committee which
will work to ensure coordination and
communication between the
Royal Government and civil society for development
purposes.
The Seila design seems to
envision the VDC as being located on the border of the state
and civil society in the
rural areas of Cambodia. Evidently it is expected that from such a strategic
position, the VDC will be able to facilitate effective interaction between
these
two disparate realms. Given
the enormous influence of the Seila model, it would be
extremely important to study
how VDCs in the five Seila provinces manage to function at
this borderline, with,
special attention to the effect of the VDC on civic action and public
governance at the grassroots. such a study was obviously well beyond the scope
of our
research.
From the documentation we
have, however, we may at least be able to get a sense of the kinds of concerns
that lay behind the VDC design . We note that the Seila programme aims to assure
cthat
population at village level traditionally excluded from decision-making be
brought into the planning dialoguec
This seems to suggest that
village civil society is to be brought into tighter dialogue with the state
through the higher levels of the Seila management structure in order to rectify
a traditional pattern of exclusion of villagers from plans that affect them.
But from what we n know about the typical desire of civil society associations
and actors to value their autonomy, one might guess that misunderstandings
might arise between these Seila designed VDCs and other civic action and public
governance activity at the grassroots that aims to maintain a wary distance
from the state. This is a question that calls for a sensitive analysis of the
relations of VDCs and other civil society actors that was beyond the scope of
our present study.
We note that the gSeila
principlesh are intended to provide a framework of assessing the gquality of the dialogueh that
generates level planning. One specific issue that is mentioned is
cthe extent of participation of groups traditionally marginalized from
village
decision- making, especially women and poorer householdsc
A second specific issue
involved in assessing the improvement in the quality of the dialogue between
the government and civil society readsc
cthe degree to which traditional power structures, including partisan
political
figures, influence the development of the plan.
A third specific issue relevant
to assessing the success of the VDC will be,
cthe extent to which the plan assists in the mobilization of internal as
opposed to
external resources.
These criteria apparently
grow out of an assessment of the nature of civil society prevailing in
Cambodian villages into which innovations based on the Seila principles will be
introduced.
The first issue seems to
suggest that, a traditional pattern of village decision- making must be
rectified in grassroots civil society in accord with Seila principles. That
would indicate that the VDC is intended to model alternatives to the indigenous
associations and groups in
civil society ii which some sectors of the rural population may be
underrepresented in community decision-making.
The second issue draws
attention to the pressures that can be expected from gpartisan political
figuresh in the highly polarized post-UNTAC Cambodian state. In view of the
proximity of the VDC to the state, at the boundary of state and civil society,
it is not clear how the newly
created VDC will resist the influence of the politics of the state. On the
other hand, other associations and groups civil society have, from time
immemorial, been inventing
ways to defend their autonomy against the state.
The notion of gtraditional
power structuresh with which the new VDCs may have to contend as they seek to
occupy space in civil society, is probably the most important assumption about
conditions in grassroots politics that this formulations makes. What is probably
meant is the local authority structure put in place in 1979 by the PRK, which
has dominated village and commune governance ever since. If so, the VDC would
seem designed to moderate the power of the state apparatus at the grassroots
level by broadening citizen participation in development planning within the
Seila planning process. That local planning process is funded externally and,
at least at the commune level an above, is led by state officials. The extent
to which the VDC serves as an agent of the state or becomes a successful
vehicle for civil society action (or whether there is a dichotomy here) can
only be discovered by specific research on that topic, which is beyond our
present scope.
The third issue relating to
the mobilization of internal resources is crucial to the question of
sustainability when the inevitable day comes that external aid dwindles. Cambodian villagers have a strong
tradition for successful generation of local resources for their civil society
activities. The best example of this, obviously, is the support provided for
the village social, cultural and religious center, the Wat. The Wat and its
mendicant monks
are completely dependent on
the regular contributions from local parishioners.
The gself-help,h or
internally supported activities and actors in Cambodian civil society,
generally associated with the Wat, were the focus of the GTZ development
experiment in Kampong Thom. A discussion of the GTZ approach will provide a
contrast to the
decentralized Seila approach and will lead into our
research findings regarding Wat- centered grassroots civil society activity.
2. The GTZ-PDP Promotion of
Self-Help Activities
GTZ had intended to make a
long-tern commitment to an experiment in development in the province of Kampong
Thom. Unfortunately, the events of July 1997 brought about a slowdown in German
funding which has curtailed the project.
Early in the formation of
the project, in 1995, the GTZ Self-help team carried out an extensive
examination of the indigenous grassroots organizations and associations in
civil society of the target province. In their assessment of this data the GTZ
Self-help team decided to become a partner to local Wat committees in order to
carry out an aid program emphasizing self-reliance and in order to build
capacity for indigenous development.
In 1996 the national
tendency to form provincial structures resembling the Seila innovations also affected Kampong Thom.
VDCs were created under a Provincial
Development Program that
worked closely with the Provincial government, with support from GTZ. The
original GTZ Self-help team, still working with Wat committees and other local
associations, became a component of the larger PDP program.
What is relevant for us in
this German effort is their documentation of the extremely lively and diverse
civil society activity that they found in the villages of Kampong Thom. There
is no reason to think that this province is unique in its preservation of
traditional Cambodian social and cultural organizations, associations and
activities. And indeed, our own research in Siem Reap and Battambang confirms
that the same internally supported civic activities found by GTZ can be found
elsewhere in Cambodia. Contrary to the agonized lament so often heard in Phnom Penh,
that Pol Potfs regime of there year eight months and twenty days had destroyed
Cambodian culture, indigenous civil society is, in fact, alive and flourishing
in the countryside.
The GTZ Self-help team
identified three levels of grassroots organizations or gself-help grouph in
their research. The first was the pagoda level, which could include a
constituency of parishioners from several villages. The second was the village
level and the third was a sub-village level comprised of several families. The gself-helph
designation indicate that
the groups traditionally relied on internal resources, The GTZ aim was to
determine where they could introduce their external resources in order to
extend the reach and effectiveness of these self-help groups.
At the Wat level, GTZ
described the Wat committee and identified it as the most
influential and significant
grassroots organization, from the point of view of the range of civic actions
it customarily organized. These activities centered on support for the Wat and
for the monks and for the schools that are normally built on Wat grounds, But
the Wat committee also organizes public works projects like tree planting, pond
digging and road and bridge building in the vicinity of the Wat.
According to the GTZ research,
the Wat committee is composed of
achaar and the
ginfluential peopleh of the
parish who, according to the GTZ finding, are
cnormally trusted by the villagers, in that the villagers are willing to concede
some
of their properties to the pagoda. The people give donations willingly not
only
for pagoda repairs but also for the pagoda associations (cash, rice) because
they
can make merit and free themselves from sinc
The Wat committee is
completely dependent on the donations of the community and is expected to keep
accurate and transparent accounts and to keep the community funds safely in the
Wat. from this position of trust and influence, members of the Wat
committee also evidently
take on other public governance function like encouraging village reciprocal help, helping to
reconcile village and domestic conflicts and advising villagers about hygiene, sanitation and the proper
use of pesticides and fertilizer.
Yet another function
mentioned for the members of the Wat committee is to maintain good contact with
the local authorities and, now, geven to international organizations.h But this
function clearly has very ancient roots.
In old times the Achaars presented the problems of people to the
district and
provincial governors and
even to the King.
Two other activities of the
Wat committee that the GTZ material describes may have traditional roots, but
clearly also have been influenced by current development initiatives On is a
gcash associationh organized by achaars and abbot to provide credit to the poor
and to finance Wat construction. The other is gmerit rice association,h which are rice banks located in
the pagodas and which evidently were established in the 1980s. These
associations seem to be modem forms by which traditional community support for
the Wat centered activities can be mobilized for community benefit
Other grassroots
organizations at the Wat level gboat racing groupsh that keep their naga boat
at the Wat, where they provide it regular offerings and ablutions. These boats
are brought by the parishioners to compete with boat from other Wats around the
country at the annual boat races in Phnom Penh, in front of the Royal Palace.
This is a kind of traditional religious and sporting activity, which is also
well known in Laos and
Thailand, that serves to
build the solidarity of the parish. That solidarity, in turn, reinforces the
influence of the Wat and committee as a center and facilitator of
civic action in the various
villages that constitute the parish.
At the village level, the
GTZ research mentions a gvillage celebration grouph organized by the chas tom
(respected elders) just after the rice harvest. The elders seek
contribution of paddy from
the farmers to from a mound of
golden grain in the village center. In the morning of the ceremony monks are
invited to bless the harvest and pray foe the next years planting season. In
the afternoon and into the night traditional music is played so the young men
and women, including those from neighboring villages, can dance together. This
harvest festival is a familiar opportunity for the kind of flirting and
courting that would probably not be appropriate at the Wat .The activity of
such a group emphasizes the role of the chas tom, who can supervise a ritual of
thanksgiving for present and future village prosperity. At the same time, the
ceremony provides a culturally approved opportunity for inter-village
solidarity to be enhanced by the marriage links that may be formed at the
festive occasion.
Below the level of village,
the GTZ research discovered many informal mutual- help groups that serve to
knit the households of Cambodian rural society together. The traditions,
customs, rules and expectation s associated with these groups suggest that they
are ancient elements of Cambodian civil life.
There are gcow exchange
groupsh by which and animal owner can have his animal tended by another person
in exchange for the one of the animalfs offspring. There gdraft animal exchange
groupsh by which people lacking on the pair of animals needed for work in the
fields, or lacking some other major agricultural implement, can work out an
exchange with a neighbor. There are glabor exchange groupsh by which reciprocal
labor for farming or house building or firewood collecting can be organized.
There are
gemergency help groupsh which form to deal with fire or mine
explosions or theft in the village. There are gpond digging grouph which form
to dig a pond for common use.
There are gcooking groupsh
of women who are expert at preparing feasts and who work at festivals, funerals
and Wat ceremonies in exchange for some of the food
There are also gpots and
dishes exchange groupsh by which contributions from villagers are used to buy
the utensils needed for ceremonies and feasts. The elders in charge of this
group lend the utensils to villagers in the group and assure that any or
breakage is
made good.
The GTZ team also noted a
number of religious activities, associated either with
Buddhism or animism, each of
which may draw in a group of believers from various pat of the community. For
instance, a ggroup to wake up the spiritsh is often led by the Wat committee.
The celebration involves the building of a mound of sand for the earth spirit.
Food is provided for the monks, the spirits and is shared by the villagers as
well. A villager who is known to by adept at entering trance to contact an
areak spirit organizes another such activity. This group joins with food and
traditional music to witness the trance and to beg for forgiveness and seek a
cure for any disease that may be afflicting the group members.
The reason the GTZ Self-help
team conducted such ethnographic research was to ascertain how and where they
could introduce their development aid into grassroots society with a maximum
sensitivity to the indigenous culture. They examined the nature of leadership
of these group in local civil society and the principles by which members of
the group joined in association. They indicated the values shared by the
community
members that enabled these group to form. They
also looked closely at the indigenous
methods by which groups
formed to accomplish tasks larger than could be contemplated by any individual
or family. Of course this latter concern was key to their development mandate.
As I noted above, the GTZ Self-help team concluded that the Wat committee would
be the most appropriate partner in their assistance projects.
3. Two Development
Approaches to Grassroots Civil Society
We saw that at the
grassroots the UNDP-CARER-Seila approach aims to introduce the VDC, which is
part of a new bureaucratic structure closely linked to the state, but which
also aims to form a bridge to civil society through development activities. In
contrast, the GTZ development approach focuses on the existing governance
structure of the Buddhist Wat, an institution of Cambodian civil society
par excellence, which is the Wat
committee, drawn from members of the parish of the Wat.
The VDC was created to look
mainly upward toward a hierarchy of committees and line ministry departments
associated with the new management structure to obtain
ministry departments
associated with the new management structure to obtain development support.
Theat support is presently available mainly from external, international donor
sources. The Wat committees are traditional organizations that look outward to
the parish on which they are completely dependent. It is only the voluntary
contributions of the Wat congregation, gathered by the Wat committee, that
enables the survival of tha Wat, the monks and makes possible the public works
activities centered on the Wat.
The UNDP-CARERE-Seila
development approach can be seen as an attempt to decentralize the financing
and management of development in the Cambodian govermment and to create the VDC
as a legal-rational entity at the boundary of the state and civil society. The
GTZ approach can be seen as an attempt to regenerate the moral influence of
Buddhism in Cambodian society by strengthening the development capacity of the
Wat committee, which is an institution situated at the boundary of the sacred
and the secular realms in the community.
Another way to look at the
contrast between the UNDP model and the GTZ model is to see how each
understands the notion of gsustainable development.h For UNDP the key to
sustainability is creating (or strengthening the capacity of) modern, western,
bureaucratic institutions in Cambodia. This paradigm aims to reform and
strengthen state apparatus, especially at the province level, and to create
quasi-bureaucratic planning partners at the grassroots that can link to the
state and to development donors. If the Seila development committees follow the
Weberian type for legal-rational institutions, we would expect a strong
tendency towards secularization in this model.
For GTZ, the key to
sustainability is to introduce improvements and efficiencies in preexisting
traditional social groupings in civil society. This paradigm emphasizes the
importance of the indigenous values, roles, beliefs, expectations and appeals
that comprise the worldview of the target community. The thrust of this
paradigm is to mobilize age-old wisdom and the practical techniques preserved
in Cambodian village culture and religion, communities at the grassroots, who
may have no formal connection to the state
A deeper study of the
consequences of gdevelopmenth for
civil society and democracy building is called for in Cambodia. Every
development initiative in Cambodia will probably find its own solution to the
problem of where it fits in relation to state and civil society, as it pursues
efforts to address problems of poverty, disease and illiteracy in rural
Cambodia. These solutions are likely to depend on an assessment of the character
of the state and the conditions of civil society institutions and the
possibilities for democracy at a particular time and place. And, of course, an
important factor will be the mandate or agenda or outlook of the agency that is
undertaking the initiative.
More research is needed to
help us understand the interplay of institutions of State and Religion in
Cambodia and their effect on civil society actors and activities especially at
the grassroots. This research would seem to be essential to determining a
development course that can be sustained when donor support begins to fall
away. It is also essential in order to assess how civil society can continue to
play a part in demanding reform and accountability from the state and how it
can continue to supply significant public governance services that remain out
of the control of the state.
In this part of the paper I
want to report on the fieldwork the CAS team of researchers
undertook in the spring of
1998 mainly in Siem Reap and Battambang, Our aim was to
identify local civil society
actors and to examine the patterns of traditional leadership of and
participation in civic action, in order to contribute to a discussion of
democracy
building in Cambodian. In
addition, we wanted to test we wanted to test whether the public governance
self-help organizations that had been identified by GTZ Kampong Thom could also
be found in province where UNDP-CARERE-Seila worked.
It was beyond the scope of
our research to examine the interaction between the new Seila crated VDCs and
older civil society organization and structures. Such a study, with a specific
focus on issues related to leadership, participation, decision making and
villagers satisfaction with the process of development planning in their
communities could be extremely useful for future discussions of the advance of
democratic processes at the grassroots in Cambodia. It is hoped that this paper
will provide some of the on which such a future study could build
Our main aim is to discuss
the Wat as a traditional center for the organization of community effort for
common benefit. The distinctive structure of grassroots leadership based on
moral-cultural qualities rather than on rank or office holding will be
considered. We will consider the role of mekhyal. These are traditionally
recognized initiators of civil action whose leadership is situational and whose
success depends on pragmatic criteria of results. Finally we will examine a
number of very small village-based local NGOs that have modest external
funding. Their structure and function and the appeals they make to mobilize
internal resources are seen be comparable to those of the Wat committee, but a
short step removed from the Wat.
1.
Wat
Centered Buddha Power
Our informants with high
level of Buddhist learning made a distinction between
aanaacak (government power)
and putteaf cak (Buddha power), as they tried to explain to us the position of
the Wat with respect to village politics and social action. Aanaacak, according
to the dictionary means gkingdom, royal power, profane or civil power as
opposed to sacred power.h This civil authority, in general, from the highest
official in the capital to the lowliest government representative in the
village is commonly referred to as roat amnaac (government power, authority).
Puttheafcak , according to the dictionary, means gpower of the Buddha, power of
Buddhism to lead its followers to religious purity,h
To translate this Cambodian
distinction as equivalent to our distinction between sacred
and profane power might be
misleading. Such a translation might suggest a similar
power were being exercised
by two different kinds of agents, like
the Pope and the King or Church and state in European history. I think
the English that may come closer to capturing the Khmer distinction is the
difference between political power and moral power. I think the difference our
Khmer informants expressed was between an external force that tries to organize
action and to enforce obedience to rules on one hand, an internal force that
gives rise to conduct and promotes adherence to principles on the other hand
The Cambodian Wat is the
center for puttea cak or moral power. Accordingly, the civic activity
associated with the wat is going to have to by seen terms of the standards and
values and moral principles Buddhism aims to advance. The sanctions that
Buddhism can invoke and the rewards it can offer are in another life or on a
moral, in contrast to