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Topic

The Making of the Cambodian People’s Party: Patronage, Power, and Politics after the Khmer Rouge

Department of Pacific and Asian Studies

Date & location

• Friday, April 11, 2025
• 2:15 P.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B021

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Thiti Jamkajornkeiat, Department of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Tri Phuong, Department of Pacific and Asian Studies, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Neilesh Bose, Department of History, UVic

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Loren McClenachan, School of Environmental Studies, UVic

Abstract

This thesis investigates the formation of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), tracing its transformation from a fragmented anti-Pol Pot resistance into Cambodia’s dominant political force. It explores three critical dimensions of the CPP’s creation: broader Cold War dynamics in Southeast Asia, shaped by the Soviet-Vietnamese alliance that set the stage for the establishment of the PRPK (predecessor to the CPP); the unification of diverse anti-Pol Pot Cambodian left-wing factions into a single party; and the party-building strategy between 1979 and 1981 that solidified the CPP’s vanguard structure.

Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and Soviet diplomatic reports, this research shifts the focus from individual political figures to the institutional history of the CPP, providing a new perspective on Cambodia’s power dynamics. It challenges multiple existing narratives, arguing instead that the CPP emerged from Cambodia’s grassroots anti-Pol Pot resistance before being institutionalized with the backing of Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The Party’s key characteristics—its vanguard design, strong presence in key peripheries, and balanced distribution of authority within its ranks—laid the foundation for the Party’s structure. These political trajectories, unfolding between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, collectively defined the process of the CPP’s formation.

By offering a nuanced understanding of the CPP’s origins, this thesis enriches the scholarship on Cambodia’s political history and sheds light on the interplay between Cold War geopolitics and the local political conjuncture that resulted in the Party’s formation.