Governing Cambodia’s Forests: The International Politics of Policy Reform. Written by Andrew Cock, NIAS Press, 2016; 322 Pages. Price: Hardback $80; £50, ISBN 978-87-7694-166-6; Paperback $32; £19.99, ISBN 978-87-7694-167-3

The widespread destruction of Cambodia’s forests in recent decades saw the loss of the last major area of pristine tropical forest in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of, often indiscriminate, logging and sale of forest and plantation concessions have enriched the country’s ruling elite, but cost its rural population dearly. It was, moreover, a process in which foreign aid donors were deeply involved, even if the outcome was contrary to their intentions. The tragedy of Cambodia’s forests has received much international publicity from environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) but far less scholarly attention. That deficiency is now addressed by this detailed and sophisticated case study of how externally sponsored reform agendas can be manipulated by domestic elites.

About the author: Andrew Cock has long worked on environmental issues including as a forestry advisor. Based in Tokyo, he currently works as an analyst at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability.

Critical acclaim: “Deserves the attention of forest and development experts […] and is important because it challenges given preconceptions on tropical forestry”—Mathieu Guérin, Eurasian Journal of Forest Science. “[A] must-read for development professionals, and not only for those dealing with forest issues”—Frédéric Bourdier, Journal of Contemporary Asia.

Readership: Anyone working or interested in environmental issues, including NGOs, journalists, policy-makers and researchers.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Map of Cambodia
• Chapter 1: The international politics of policy reform

  • Analyzing forest governance
  • The politics of policy reform
  • Book structure
• Chapter 2: Tropical forests in the global states-system

  • The evolution of international initiatives related to tropical forests
  • ‘Sustainable Forest Management’ and contemporary forestry reform agendas
  • Tropical forests as an anomalous space in the modern world-system
• Chapter 3: Aid donors and the Cambodian elite

  • Cambodia’s contemporary political economy
  • Hun Sen and the Cambodian state: patrimonialism, state-building and class formation
  • External agendas and pressures for reform
  • A hybrid system
• Chapter 4: Cambodia’s timber boom and external pressures for reform

  • Prelude to the timber boom
  • The timber boom’s first phase: the Thai connection
  • The timber boom’s second phase: collaboration and competition within the coalition government
  • An emerging policy reform agenda and external pressures for reform
  • Rationalities of extraction
• Chapter 5: Extraction

  • The ‘reform’ accommodation
  • The agents and instruments through which the ‘reform’ agenda was furthered
  • Reforms and the governance of extraction
• Chapter 6: Appropriation and enclosure

  • The rationality of appropriation
  • The unravelling of the reform agenda
  • Elite counter-responses and the enclosure of forestland
• Chapter 7: Integration and forest preservation

  • External–internal interaction in the trajectory of forest governance
  • The prospects for tropical forest preservation
  • Governmental rationality in the periphery of the post-Cold War international system
• Appendix 1: Logging concessions ordered by date of cancellation
• Appendix 2: Trends in forest cover change 1973–2014
• Bibliography
• Index

* Editor’s Note:

A book review for Governing Cambodia’s Forests: The International Politics of Policy Reform from readers would be highly welcomed. We will send the book electronically to a reader interested in writing the book review.

The brief summary and the contents of the book are reported as provided by the author or the publishers. Authors and publishers are encouraged to send review copies of their recent books of potential interest to readers of Forests to the Publisher (Dr. Shu-Kun Lin, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland. Tel.: +41-61-683-77-34; Fax: +41-61-302-89-18, E-Mail: [email protected]). Some books will be offered to the scholarly community for the purpose of preparing full-length reviews.