Search results for ""Author Sophal Ear""

International intervention liberated Cambodia from pariah state status in the early 1990s and laid the foundations for more peaceful, representative rule. Yet the country's social indicators and the integrity of its political institutions declined rapidly within a few short years, while inequality grew dramatically. Conducting an unflinching investigation into these developments, Sophal Ear reveals the pernicious effects of aid dependence and its perversion of Cambodian democracy. International intervention and foreign aid resulted in higher maternal (and possibly infant and child) mortality rates and unprecedented corruption by the mid-2000s. Similarly, in example after example, Ear finds the more aid dependent a country, the more distorted its incentives to develop sustainably. Contrasting Cambodia's clothing sector with its rice and livestock sectors and internal handling of the avian flu epidemic, he showcases the international community's role in preventing Cambodia from controlling its national development. A postconflict state unable to refuse aid, Cambodia is rife with trial-and-error donor experiments and their unintended consequences, such as bad governance and poor domestic and tax revenue performance-a major factor curbing sustainable, nationally owned growth. By outlining the terms through which countries can achieve better ownership of their development, Ear offers alternatives for governments still on the brink of collapse, despite ongoing dependence on foreign intervention and aid.

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This book explores China’s quest for energy sources, raw materials and natural resources around the world, with a specific emphasis on oil. China’s ubiquitous presence in Africa, Asia and Latin America is reshaping the world with regards to economics, politics and national security. It offers a comprehensive examination of China’s energy security strategy. The first two chapters delve into Chinese relations with energy markets and the world, and the global geopolitics of China's resource quest. This introductory section is complemented by three in-depth country case studies: Angola, Brazil and Cambodia. The two concluding chapters cover opportunities and risks to China, and examine how strategies can be developed into tangible actions. The volume also examines a number of overlapping debates regarding the varieties of capitalisms (autocratic vs. democratic), the urgent need for rebalancing as the world undergoes global financial crises and contestations to traditional powers, and the issues surrounding natural resource extraction in the context of global governance, neoliberalism and poverty traps.Key Features· Offers an in-depth analysis on the geopolitics of China's resource quest.· Assists students and scholars in understanding the Chinese model of autocratic capitalism and China’s novel ways of securing resources across three continents.· Explains China’s energy security strategy and its implications on US national security.· Explores the links between international relations and the geopolitics of scarcity.

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