CPP Futures

Second Cambodia Seminar Series with Astrid Norén-Nilsson and Neil Loughlin

NIAS is delighted to invite to the second online lecture of the “Cambodia Seminar Series” organized in collaboration with the New York Southeast Asia Network (NYSEAN). In this seminar, Astrid Norén-Nilsson, Senior lecturer at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University and Neil Loughlin, Lecturer in Comparative Politics at City, University of London will discuss their articles from a recent special issue of Contemporary Southeast Asia with Director of NIAS, Duncan McCargo.  

 About the event:

Taken together, the two articles identify and explain the mechanisms for the renewal of the core CPP elites within different institutions and constituencies. While Loughlin demonstrates how the children of Hun Sen’s loyal elites assume leadership within the party, military and business, Norén-Nilsson analyses how youth organizations reproduce party, state and economic elite structures, and function as platforms for CPP scions to take on roles within the state. The CPP’s adjustments can be understood as hamstrung  by the particular logics engrained in the party’s exercise of power so far,  reproducing the exclusion of most of society. Both authors conclude that these initiatives are likely to have long-lasting consequences through the regeneration of a relatively stable core of ruling elites.