Rivers of Resistance: Aid, Activism and Energy in Cambodia and Myanmar

Abstract

On 2 March 1962, tanks and troops rolled out into the streets of Myanmar’s then capital, Yangon, as the military launched a coup that marked the beginning of Myanmar’s decades-long international isolation. In not dissimilar fashion, the Khmer Rouge marched into Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, on 17 April 1975, overthrowing the fledgling Lon Nol government. Rather than stabilise the country, however, it would mark the beginning of a genocide that killed up to two million people and plunged Cambodia into its own form of international isolation. Not until the 1992 arrival of United Nations peacekeepers in Cambodia and Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar in 2008, would both countries emerge from their respective isolation. The ensuing influxes of international aid focused extensively on supporting civil society actors, to advance democracy, human rights, and socioeconomic development. As of late 2023, long-term Prime Minister Hun Sen has eviscerated civil society resistance in Cambodia and transferred power to his son, Hun Manet. Similar efforts to cling to power by Myanmar’s military were met with revolution. For both countries, natural resource governance has been a central factor in shaping the contours of contestation. Through a conceptual framing of isolation and post-isolation, the thesis delivers a historically embedded examination of the relationship between international aid, civil society actors, the state and capital, in Cambodia and Myanmar. Specifically, what are the historical, political and aid dynamics which shape the development of civil society and how have these dynamics influenced civil society actors in post-isolation Cambodia and Myanmar? The analysis utilises an interdisciplinary lens, grounded in Gramscian and political ecology thought, as it connects contemporary events with historical and structural factors. In doing so, the thesis contributes to debates about aid politics, subaltern resistance, and development. Whereas aid has attracted extensive critique for its depoliticising impacts, a more nuanced analysis is constructed that elucidates the agency of and constraints on civil society actors. Central to the thesis is contestation over natural resource governance, which galvanised opposition to the state’s rapacious development agenda in both countries. This is illuminated through case studies examining opposition to dams and the contestation of hydropower hegemony, an analytical framing where dams are a microcosm for understanding competing visions for development in both countries. Through two main case studies in each country and 113 interviews and group discussions, the PhD explains how and why emancipatory movements emerged and took certain trajectories. The methodology also deploys the “extended case method,” particularly ethnographic embeddedness and critical reflexivity. For Cambodia, historical and political factors, alongside the distortions of international aid, delayed the emergence of such movements, but over time they increasingly opposed the state’s accumulation by dispossession. This is elucidated through a focus on the Lower Sesan Two and Areng Valley anti-dam movements. However, as the counter-movement intensified, so too did Hun Sen’s response, highlighting civil society fragility and the regime’s resilience, as Cambodia once again intensified authoritarian rule in 2017. In contrast, decades of isolation incubated civil society networks across Myanmar that contributed to both its comparatively forthcoming dynamism and ongoing resilience; the influx of international aid was also distortionary, but its influence was mediated by assertive civil society actors. This is evident in modalities of contestation, such as declarations of Indigenous self-determination and territorial sovereignty against the encroaching and violent military state, and further epitomised by the ongoing revolution, despite, not because of international aid. Analysis of the Myitsone and Salween Peace Park campaigns, amidst Myanmar’s broader post-isolation transition, reveal these dynamics, where resistance did not just oppose the state, but also reimagined governance and development. The thesis concludes that international aid distorted rather than depoliticised civil society actors, where historical and political influences were significantly more consequential. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge’s social dislocation and the aid influx delayed the emergence of what the thesis calls “confrontationist” civil society actors, while the state sought to channel dissent through NGOs. As the confrontationists expanded, China played a critical role in enabling and now sustaining Hun Sen’s authoritarian pivot. Myanmar offers a salient juxtaposition, where the thesis contends that international aid and China were far less consequential than in Cambodia; civil society actors’ revolutionary commitment is instead grounded in decades of opposition to junta rule. As these actors continue the revolution amidst egregious military violence, international aid institutions search for relevance.