Kimura, Rikio (2014) Working with and between citizens and a neo-patrimonial government: how has an NGO’s contextualised rights-based approach influenced Cambodians’ agency in fulfilling their rights to development? Doctoral thesis (EdD), University of Sussex.

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Abstract

Mainly from the perspective of transformative learning (TL), the thesis explores
how the rights-based approach (RBA) by a Cambodian NGO has influenced rural
citizens’ agency in fulfilling their rights to development and, consequently, has brought
about social change. The study was conducted in particular contexts where for the last
decade there have been decentralisation reforms and land grabbing, both of which have
come into existence as a result of the conjunction of neo-patrimonialism (as a
patronage-based practice by the Cambodian government) and such global forces as the
influences of aid donors and the increase in global resource demands. The literature
indicates that RBA as a western-conceptualised and confrontational approach is not
likely to work, especially in relation to the often authoritarian governments of
developing countries. Hence, this study has chosen a Cambodian NGO—which has
modified RBA to fit the rural context of Cambodia—as a case, so as to explore the
potential and limits of RBA in a highly repressive and complex context.
In order to explore the context-specific yet multi-scalar phenomenon of the
agency and structure relationship, I utilised a grounded theory ethnographic study inspired by critical realism and employed the expanded framework of the TL theory,
further complemented by the Freirean approach and Gramscian thought. Furthermore, in
order to delve into how the exercise of citizens’ agency is constrained by structures, this
study also situates TL’s rather active view of agency in the critical realist’s moderate
view of agency.

This thesis argues that the Cambodian NGO, by working closely with
government, has made full use of and further widened the democratic spaces made
available through decentralisation, in order to create spaces conducive to TL, and has
harnessed its multi-faceted and process-oriented rights-based empowerment approach in
order to enhance citizens’ agency to claim their rights. However, the thesis critiques the
fact that the NGO has not enabled citizens to become aware of and to contend against
the deep-seated practice of neo-patrimonialism that is hidden behind the democratic
façade of the decentralisation process and that has engendered land grabbing, with the
result that the NGO has been promoting 'thin' rights. Finally this study reveals the
possibilities of TL through RBA in the highly oppressive and resource-scarce context of
rural Cambodia, yet casts doubt on its replicability as it appears to demand the
mobilisation of a number of enabling factors in order for TL to occur within such a
context.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Schools and Departments:	School of Education and Social Work > Education
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DS History of Asia > DS520 Southeast Asia > DS531 French Indochina > DS554 Cambodia J Political Science > JZ International relations > JZ4835 International organisations and associations > JZ4841 Political non governmental organisations. NGOs
Depositing User:	Library Cataloguing
Date Deposited:	26 Nov 2014 07:42
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2015 09:23
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/50518

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