Title: Framing Post-conflict Societies: international pathologisation of Cambodia and the post-Yugoslav states
Abstract: Abstract This article examines the pathologisation of post-conflict societies through a comparison of the framing of the Cambodian and post-Yugoslav states. The notion of failed states fixes culpability for war on the societies in question, rendering the domestic populations dysfunctional while casting international rescue interventions as functional. The article suggests that the discourse of pathologisation can be understood primarily not as a means of explaining state crisis so much as legitimising an indefinite international presence and deferring self-government. Notes Caroline Hughes is in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham BH15 2TT, UK. Vanessa Pupavac is in the School of Politics, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. Email: [email protected] An earlier version of this paper was presented to the bisa International Relations and Global Development Working Group at the University of Sussex. Our thanks to Alison Ayers, Branwen Gruffydd Jones and Julian Saurin for their encouraging comments. G Helman & S Ratner, ‘Saving failed states’, Foreign Policy, 74(4), 1992 – 93, p 3. Ibid, p 12. M Duffield, ‘Governing the borderlands: decoding the power of aid’, Disasters, 25(4), 2001, pp 216 – 229. V Pupavac, ‘Therapeutic governance: psycho-social intervention and trauma risk management’, Disasters, 25(4), 2001, pp 358 – 372. Centre for Strategic and International Studies and Association of the US Army, Play to Win, Final Report of the Bi-Partisan Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Washington, DC: csis and ausa, 2003, p 1, emphasis added. F Brown & D Timberman (eds), Cambodia and the International Community: The Quest for Peace, Development and Democracy, New York: Asia Books, 1998, p 25. D Chandler, A History of Cambodia, Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 1993, p 79. Ibid, pp 86 – 87, 98, 271. Chandler rejects this view of decline, regarding ‘genuine decline’ as occurring only from the late 18th century to the establishment of colonialism. W Shawcross, Sideshow: Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia, London: Hogarth Press, 1991. Security Council Resolution on Transitional Period in Cambodia following the Withdrawal of untac, S/RES/880 (1993). Reference to the ‘new Cambodia’ harks back to UN Special Representative Yakushi Akashi's interpretation of the UN's mandate as ‘To build a new country, the task of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia’, Harvard International Review, 15, 1992, pp 34 – 35, 68 – 69. This was a discourse significantly promoted by Cambodia's post-independence leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk. See J Armstrong, Sihanouk Speaks, New York: Walker and Co, 1964. This conception of Cambodian politics was criticised by, among others, M Leifer, ‘The Cambodian opposition’, Asian Survey, 2(2), 1962, p 12. For similar contemporary approaches, see, for example, T Findlay, The Legacy and Lessons of untac, New York: Oxford University Press. See, for example, J Metzl, ‘The Vietnamese of Cambodia’, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 8, 1995, p 275; G Curtis, Cambodia Reborn? The Transition to Democracy and Development, Washington, DC: Brookings, 1998, p 113; D Roberts, Political Transition in Cambodia 1991 – 9, Richmond: Curzon, 2001; and M Brown & J Zasloff, Cambodia Confounds the Peacemakers 1979 – 1998, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. J Ledgerwood, ‘Rural development in Cambodia: the view from the village’, in Brown & Timberman, Cambodia and the International Community, p 128. D Chandler & B Kiernan, ‘Introduction’, in Chandler & Kiernan (eds), Revolution and its Aftermath in Kampuchea, Eight Essays, Monograph Series No 25, New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1983, p 6. N Stephen, R Lallah & S Ratner, ‘Introduction’, in Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 52/125, United Nations, 18 February 1999, at http://www.camnet.com.kh/ngoforum/un-report.html. M Duffield, ‘The symphony of the damned: racial discourse, complex emergencies and humanitarian aid’, Disasters, 20(3), 1996, pp 173 – 193. For example, L Diamond, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives, Washington, DC: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1995; D Hupchick, Culture and History in Eastern Europe, New York: St Martins Press, 1994; R Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History, New York: St Martins Press, 1993; D Moynihan, Pandemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993; and D Owen, Balkan Odyssey, London: Indigo, 1996. Hupchick, Culture and History in Eastern Europe, p 5. C Bildt, ‘Response to Dr Henry Kissinger's article in the Washington Post of September entitled, “In the Eye of the Hurricane”’, Office of the High Representative (OHR), 14 September 1996, at http://www.ohr.int/articles/a960914a.htm; Moynihan, Pandemonium, p viii; and R West, Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia, London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996, p 339. For example, B Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide, London: Hurst, 1999; R Gutman, Witness to Genocide, New York: Macmillan, 1993; B Magas, The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracing the Break-up 1980 – 1992, London: Verso, 1993; N Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History, London: Papermac, 1996; M Sells, The Bridge Portrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996; and E Vuilliamy, Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War, London: Simon & Schuster, 1994. E Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p 167. See, for example, R Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflicts, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1999; and D Rusinow (ed), Yugoslavia: A Fractured Federalism, Washington, DC: Wilson Center Press, 1990 for a discussion of SFR Yugoslavia's ethnic key approach. D Ugresic, The Culture of Lies, London: Phoenix House, 1998, p 217. Z Lesic (ed), Children of Atlantis: Voices from the Former Yugoslavia, Budapest: Central University Press, 1995. A Ong, Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship and the New America, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003, pp 84 – 89. R Mollica, ‘A society at war from invisible wounds’, Scientific American, June 2000, pp 54 – 57. For example, B Denitsch, ‘Dismembering Yugoslavia: nationalist ideologies and the symbolic revival of genocide’, American Ethnologist, 21, 1994, p 367; or A Richters, ‘Trauma as a permanent indictment of injustice: a sociocultural critique of dsm-III and dsm-IV’, Journal of Community Mental Health, 4, 2001. K Cahill, ‘Introduction’, in Cahill (ed), Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars before they Start, New York: Basic Books, p 7. M Mandelbaum, ‘The reluctance to intervene’, Foreign Policy, 95, 1994, pp 3 – 18. Curtis, Cambodia Reborn?, p 113. Zdravo da ste, Annual Report 1999, Banja Luka, March 2000. M Pugh & N Cooper with John Goodhand, War Economies in a Regional Context: Challenges of Transformation, London: Lynne Rienner, 2004. For an academic view, see Hayden, Blueprints for a House Divided. For a diplomat's view, see C Bildt, Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1998, p 145. F Schmidt, ‘The legacy of violence in Kosova’, rfe/fl Balkan Report, 16 March 2001. B Denitsch, Ethnic Nationalism: The Tragic Death of Yugoslavia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995, p 146. W Petritsch, ‘The future lies with its people’, The Wall Street Journal Europe, 17 September 1999. In an article in a Bosnian journal Petritsch mentions ‘the principle of odgovornost or vlasnitvo (“ownership,” in English), by which they agreed that the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and their leaders, own and are primarily responsible for the future of their country’. W Petritsch, ‘Odgovornost is the key to returns, and Sarajevo, the capital, must lead’, Dani, 1 October 1999. Brown & Timberman, Cambodia and the International Community, p 25. C Westerndorp, ‘Lessons Bosnia taught us’, Wall Street Journal, 19 May 1999. Petritsch, ‘The future lies with its people’. ohr, Open Broadcast Network News Review, 13 January2000; and [email protected]. M Kirby, ‘Oral statement’, Third Committee of the General Assembly, 27 November 1995, p 2. International human rights activist, personal interview, Washington DC, August 1995. Former untac employee and international human rights activist, personal interview, Phnom Penh, July 1996. United Nations Centre for Human Rights official, personal interview, Phnom Penh, August 1996. International human rights activist, personal interview, Phnom Penh, January 1996. gtz official, personal interview, Phnom Penh, February 2003. M Doyle, ‘Peacebuilding in Cambodia: the continuing quest for power and legitimacy’, in Brown & Timberman, Cambodia and the International Community, p 90. B Deacon, Michelle Hulse & Paul Stubbs, Global Social Policy: International Organizations and the Future of Welfare, London: Sage, 1997, p 181. See, for example, S Bit, The Warrior Heritage: A Psychological Perspective of Cambodian Trauma, El Cerrito, 1991. R McCreery, Director, Cambodia Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, personal interview, April 1999. M Jergovic, Sarajevo Marlborough, London: Penguin, 1997, p 111 Ibid, p 84. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1965. Ugresic, The Culture of Lies, p 200. Additional informationNotes on contributorsCaroline Hughes Caroline Hughes is in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham BH15 2TT, UK. Vanessa Pupavac is in the School of Politics, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. Email: [email protected]