General Consequences Of Corruption In Cambodia

Having gone through civil war for decades, Cambodia, an impoverished developing country, is now confronting an inevitable corruption matter which is a frustrating element for our country development because corruption may be defined as the abuse of public position for personal gain or for the  benefit of an individual or group to whom one owes allegiance.

 Firstly, corruption plays an indispensable role in diminishing the human resources because it has been deteriorating the educational system. Cambodian teachers are paid low wage, as a result they sometimes don’t instruct students from the bottom of their heart and don’t proctor alertly while students are taking test. Rampant cheating and paying money to teachers or school principals to pass exam are very rife; therefore, Cambodian students’ capacities are far different from foreign students’ because of these egregious activities. Meanwhile, many boundary officials takes money from drug smugglers in an exchange for granting them authority to traffic drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana freely leading to an increasing number of drug addicts, crucially among students who will be future leaders or country builders.

 Secondly, corruption could have been a scarecrow to intimidate many honest international investors away from our region. When they invest in our community, there would have been many steps to achieve their goals because they need to provide the under-the-table costs to some high-level officials in order to pave ways for their trading. Thus, if they don’t, their business won’t pay off. In contract, you see many garment factories built up to invest in our country because those places have no corruption or little corruption. Besides, in other provinces we haven’t seen much investment; however, in some remote areas we can see some investment such as rubber plantation, cassava plantation, and other plantations as a result of getting economic land concession. That investment scarcely profits or serves the people or our nations and even exploits people or nations benefits because its inadequate economic land concession overlaps people’s land and dense forest.

 Thirdly, corruption can divert public financial and material resources away from the public use for which they are intended because such money should go to the Finance Ministry, to bestow for the people, through corruption is instead go to the pockets or banking accounts of a few powerful government officials at the expend of the people. In fact, it can be clearly experienced that schools or health centers lack materials or equipment for students or citizens because money for buying such things vanished. Donor communities won’t provide us aids to assist the poor because they discern that their money or their citizens’ money will be used unsuitably, so the interval between the poor and the rich will be very huge.

Finally, corruption can lead to judicatory unfairness and devastate factual evidences. Many indigent citizens or victims rarely gain fairness or justice from judges inasmuch as other parties have much money to bribe them and, sometimes, plaintiff can be a defendant because of the influence of money. On the other hand, affluent perpetrators can be released from custody because they have money to eliminate their wrongdoing or they are relative of high-ranking officials. As seen above, corruption takes variety of forms: bribery, nepotism, diversion of public revenue and so on.

 To sum up, corruption has been deemed as a weapon to demolish our nations and as long as corruption still exists in our country, our chances to ameliorate our country development or to alleviate poverty are unattainable, so we must fight against corruption.

New Approaches To Global Politics: State and New Centralities

Nowadays, the Global Politics is undergoing significant change. In the context of international relation, there seems to have emerged a New Landscape, which doesn't cause major changes in the international landscape. However, those changes are embedded in huge changes of global politics. Globalization is one of the changes which should be taken thoroughly into account. Globalization, in this context, is somehow the outcome of market-related actors to enhance and maintain its market position. To reach this goal, things are to be produced: new technologies, new tool for capital market, commodification of asset and so on.

Besides, taking a perfunctory glance at the term “Inter-National” and “Transnational” is somehow similar, but these two terms are different. “Inter-National” means any actions or activities existing, operating, or done between states. On the other hand, “Transnational” refers to actions or activities between actors in different states by passing the government, but there is not any government’s involvement.

Governance is a common feature or interaction at all levels of government and somehow between institution at these level as well. Thus, the state power and control are very significant, and it must have interacting among different type of level. As a result, there are three type of displacement of sate power and control. The first one is moving downward which focuses on regions, localities and community. The second is moving outward, which deals with NGOs, corporatization, and privatization. The third level is moving upward, which focuses on emerging role of international actors and organizations.

The Moving Downward: At this point, it’s very important for the state to decentralize its power and control effectively and adequately to the local institution. By doing this, the local departments can decide things independently without spending time to ask for approval from the central government. In this case of state-local decentralization could probably give the communities more influence on financial responsibility and also it does encourage people to get more involved with their neighborhood.

The Moving Out: This type of power displacement refers to the moving of power and capabilities previously or traditionally owned by the state to institutions and organizations. This can contribute significant advantages for the state towards her people. By doing this, some organizations can fulfill some necessary tasks which the state will surely implement, so it can reduce the state-budget expenditure. Moreover, privatization should be also taken for granted. By privatizing some companies or services, the state can obtain an amount of money in case that state is really in need of money to help its reducing its debts. Meanwhile, it also helps to promote democracy because the state won’t control everything, and this action encourages people to do the investment as well.

The Moving Upward: This type deals with the emerging role of international organization. These international organizations are playing very important role in the international stage which state should also be part of it. State dares to surrender part of its power and sovereignty to such transnational body in a number of policy sections, which aims at the state’s interest. Being part of ASEAN member states  is a very good choice for Cambodia because it can use the name of ASEAN to have strong voices in the international state, but it also does have some problems related to the country decision making.

From my own perspective and in the Cambodian context, I think that moving upward and moving outward, Cambodian government is doing a good job. However, the moving downward, Cambodian government is very hesitating to diffuse power and control towards her local and communal institutions and the local communities have to ask for every decision and approval from the central government. To me, it seems weird and frustrated as one of the citizens. 

How Could Regional Integration Be Improved Within ASEAN?

As we all know, ASEAN integration will be done in 2015. To prepare oneself for this regional integration, each members is struggling one’s best to ameliorate many factors one considered to be necessary or inevitable for the upcoming 2015. From my own perspectives, to improve the regional integration within ASEAN, some actions and ideas should be taken into consideration. Those are as the following.

Picture Source: http://nhandan.org.vn

Youth Exchange Program should have been additionally initiated to strengthen the ties among ASEAN members since the root level. Youth is the core pillar of the nation, so familiarizing the youths from each member countries together will surely result in good understanding among member states in a very long term generation.

Moreover, youth can share the sense of culture, custom, civilization and the habit of each country among others to avoid misunderstanding. Moreover, ministerial meeting is also a significant point to improve the regional integration. Ministers in the same field should regularly meet and discuss about their field situations and other problems which are considered to be necessary and vital to tackle. This can lead to a mutual understanding among ASEAN member state ministers.

Improving knowledge and skills for the poor member countries should be urgently taken into account. It’s clearly seen that the member states of ASEAN have different standard of living, some of which are far poorer compared to the others. The poor country should develop its citizen’s knowledge and skills to the extent which can be accepted as the ASEAN standards. If the poor country can do this, there will be a good labor flow among ASEAN member country.

Each member state should deposit some amount of moneys to be used for the sake of ASEAN rather than individual member. Besides, such money could be used to bail out any members who are in the state of needing financial assistance. Besides, each should guarantee that the knowledge and information about ASEAN have to be disseminated and circulated nationwide in order for the citizens of the member countries to understand what ASEAN is, and what they should have to be an effective and efficient cell of ASEAN. If the citizens of each member countries don’t know what ASEAN is, the integration will mean nothing.

Most importantly, all member states have to abide firmly to the rule of law of ASEAN. Meanwhile, the educational system of each member states should insert one course called ASEAN studies to make the young generation understand and well-prepared to be ASEAN resident. Last but not least, ASEAN member states have to reach 3 major sectors integration: economic integration, political integration and social integration.

      Economic Integration: As soon as economic integration is successfully reached, there will be a free flow of trading activities, a removal of trading barrier, and a flow of labor and capitals among ASEAN member states leading to a free single market. This means that ASEAN market will surely be a solid and robust market with huge consumption – big demand and big supply in a single market – and ASEAN will have a strong economy. Moreover, this not only creates the inter-flow of trading among ASEAN members but also attracts attention of world market and ASEAN+. Furthermore, while doing economic integration, each member countries will be encouraged and pushed to work harder and harder to improve their conditions such as rule of law, human right, security and so on to meet ASEAN standard.

      Political Integration: When there is political integration, it leads to the creation of understanding, friendship, mutual respect and national interest in terms of diplomacy and good cooperation. This will help to reduce conflicts like border dispute among the member states leading to cooperation in terms of regional security, armed forces, and others. Besides, ASEAN will become one voice community on the international stages to make it more increasingly puissant, and it can confront the superpower such as US, China, Russia and European Union. Political integration helps make administration better although not all member countries follow democracy, and it will try to engage all members to have maximum alike. Even though ASEAN member countries can’t be made the same, there will be very less differences.

      Social Integration: Social integration is like a catalyst to push forwards the economic and political integration to the extent which prompts ASEAN to be globally recognized as one of the superpowers. This kind of integration will assist ASEAN members to understand one another better. When people in ASEAN get to each other in terms of language, culture, education, food, way of living, and others, it’s definitely progressive and positive for economic and political integration.

Media Power In European Parliamentary Election - Agenda Setting

In the globalization world, things are accelerating, and many things are interacted together. Media play significant roles in every country. Without media, freedom of expression and information circulation will surely vanish, and people will not be able to know what are truly taking place in the milieu they are dwelling. On the other hand, election is undeniably deemed to be a core element of democracy in one specific country. Without free and fair election, citizens in one specific country will not be able to vote to choose their leader satisfactorily. European election had not progressed primarily as a result of the resistance of President De Gaulle, and his successor in 1969, Georges Pompidou, relaxed the French position, allowing the European Communities to open a new chapter on integration which led to the first European election in 1979[1]. Media in Europe are also very advancing and contributing in a remarkable way into European election. Thus, this research is to depict “Media Power in European Parliamentary Election” which I mainly focus only on the political agenda setting.

To elaborate on this topic, two research questions have been developed: Why do media play crucial role in political agenda setting in European Parliamentary election? And how do media influence it? European election also plays very crucial role in the international stage because it must produce some indirect effects towards some countries, especially Cambodia who considers, more or less, European election as a model for her own country election. Comparing media power between in European Parliamentary election and in Cambodian National Assembly election is one of the discussion points in this research paper, and a case of study of European Parliamentary election is also raised.

According to McCombs and Shaw, agenda setting refers to the idea which has a strong correlation between the emphasis that mass media place on certain issues (for example, based on relative placement or amount of coverage) and the importance attributed to these issues by mass audience. From this perspective, political agenda setting must be based on the interaction between media and citizens. Each media institution has their own agenda setting on what contents to be reported and published, and those published materials serve as information providing to citizens who soon will develop their own reaction or agenda towards those received information. The citizen’s agenda or reaction is what political party is really curious to know because each political party will set its own agenda to fulfill what citizens are demanding. What Mccombs and Shaws had mentioned is very similar to what McQuai and Windahl discovered as well. This diagram shows that there are circles and interaction among media agenda, public agenda and policy agenda, which was influenced by personal experience and interpersonal communication, and real-world indicators of the importance of an agenda issue or event.

Source: McQuail & Windahl (1993)

In this passage I would like to compare slightly about the roles of media between European Parliamentary Election and Cambodian National Assembly Election to seek out what the differences and sameness are because Cambodia considers EU as one of her role model in terms of democracy, especially election. As mentioned above, media are very pivotal in EPE, and it’s very important to the Cambodian Nation Assembly Election in 2013 as well. In the EPE, all kinds of media played very significant roles. However, in the CNAE in 2013, only social media served as a vital tool towards the election. Television, radio and most printed media are somehow considered to be affiliated to the government, so many citizens, especially youth turned to social media to share information related to the election. Seeing this trend, the opposition party prioritized social media, especially facebook, for its political campaign. As a result, it has been very surprising towards the election result. The opposition in the previous mandate, 2008, won only 29 out of 123 parliamentary seats. However, according to the official result released by National Election Committee on 8 September 2013, the opposition party surprisingly won 55 out of 123 parliamentary seats, which has doubled. This depicts the trend that social media is an effective and puissant tool in Cambodia election.The 2004 European Parliamentary election were an unprecedented exercise in democracy with more than 350 million people in 25 countries having the opportunity to vote. The elections took place only weeks after the accession of 10 new member states to the European Union – the largest enlargement ever. Most voters in both the old EU-15 and another 10 new member states experience politics primarily through media[2]. Thus, it’s evident that people in the EPE used media in forms of television and newspaper as an inevitable tool to learn and understand about politics, candidates, political party and so on. Without media it’s very hard for EU people to have access to EPE information. Political agenda setting by the media is contingent upon a number of conditions. The input variables of the model are the kind of issues covered, the specific media outlet, and the sort of coverage[3]. When mass media emphasize a topic, the audience receiving the message will consider this topic to be important (Cohen, 1963; McCombs & Shaw, 1972). According to some authors’ perspective and my observation in the reality, it’s convinced that media do serve as a core actor in shaping political agenda setting because media are the first thing which people approach whenever they need information. Besides, agenda setting is considerably more than the classical assertion that the news tells us what to think. The new also tells us how to think about it. Both the selection of objectives for attention and the selection of frames for thinking about these objects are powerful agenda-setting roles[4].

Based on some perspectives above, media do contribute a plethora of effects towards political agenda setting of the election, and people’s decision-making, more or less, are based on what they see, hear and read through media. The political party, people and media institution have various sorts of agenda setting for themselves, but through media, those agendas would, to some extent, intertwine together. As a result, each political party, both ruling party and opposition party, always tries one’s best to control the media because they know that by ruling the media they can control political agenda setting. Controlling agenda setting means one is the decision-maker of what kinds of information to be published. Thus, one will become the dominant of information leading to the holder of data. Nowadays, there is one quote that “Who controls data controls the world”.

Supporting this research paper with only existing research journals and documents is not very scientific although it’s based on some empirical findings of some authors and me. However, this research paper can portray some knowledge relevant to media and political agenda setting to other, but it’s not enough. Thus, I think more research about media effects on political agenda setting in the context of European Parliamentary Election should be done to broaden and provide more understanding for the people.

Bibliography

Kovar, Jan and Kovar, Kamil(2007). National or European? EP Election Campaign Themes in News Media. In: European Electoral Studies, Vol. 7, No.1. pp. 30-41

McCombs, Maxell E., University of Texas at Austin, and Shaw, Donald L., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Evolution of Agenda-Setting Research: Twenty-Five Years in the Marketplace of Ideas. In: Symposium

McCombs, Maxwell (2005): A look at Agenda-Setting: Past, Present and Future. In: Journalism Studies, 6:4, 543-557, Dol: 10.1080/14616700500250438. UK: Routledge

Peglis, Michalis (2013): 2014 European Elections: Uncharted Territory? Available at : http://www.ekathimerini.com (05. 09.2013)

Vreese, Claese H., University of Amsterdam, The Netherland; Banducci, Susan A., University of Exeter, UK; Semetko, Holli A., Empory University, USA; and Boomgaarden, Hajo G., University of Amsterdam, The Netherland (2006): The News Coverage of the 2004 European Parliamentary Election Campaign in 25 Countries. In: European Union Politics, Vol. 7, No. 4. pp 477-504. London, Thousand Oasks CA, New Delhi : SAGE Publications

Walgrave, Stefaan and Aelstz, Peter.V (2006): Mass Media’s Political Agenda-Setting Power. The Contingency of the Mass Media’s Political Agenda Setting Power: Toward a Preliminary Theory. In: Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9915

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[1] Peglis, Michalis. 20 August 2013 on http://www.ekathimerini.com

[2] Vreese; Banducci; Semetko; and Boomgaarden(2006) : European Union Politics. The News Coverage of the 2004 European Parliamentary Election Campaign in 25 Countries. Volume 7(4): 477-504. SAGE Publications.

[3] Walgrave, Stefaan and Aelst, Peter Van: Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916. The Contingency of the Mass Media’sPolitical Agenda Setting Power: Toward a Preliminary Theory.

[4] McCombs, Maxwell E., University of Texas at Austin, and Shaw, Donald L., University of North Carolina at Capel Hill : The Evolution of Agenda-Setting Research : Twenty-Five Years in the Marketplace of Ideas

Creative Common License First Presented In Cambodia

A variety of students are listening about what CC is.

Creative Common License, founded in 2001 in the European blocs, was introduced for the first time in Cambodia during BarCamp Phnom Penh event held in Institute of Technology of Cambodia on Saturday afternoon in October 19, 2013. Creative Common License was presented by KHAD, a media team founded by 9 enthusiastic media students, to around 30 participants, who were keen to know what CC license is, from various institutions.

Introducing CC license to the public is to promote the legalized culture of sharing among Cambodian people, the majority of whom are accustomed to pirating documents, music, software, photos and others. Before commencing the session, participants were divided into two groups, each of which was distributed a paper to draw pictures. Each group members was asked to draw whatever one wanted and passed it to the others to add more.

“Starting with a scratch of number 7, you could end up with a nice piece of drawing with bird and a human. This implies that if you kept your idea exclusively for the individual, a scratch of number 7 would never become a good piece of bird and human,” said Mr. Nhem Piseth,a self-run  KHAD team leader.

Although Cambodia became the 148^th member of World Trade Organization in October 2004, the using of pirated products and violating one’s invention haven’t been taken serious actions against yet because WTO gives Cambodia a limited period of time not to abide strictly copyright standard of WTO.

There are many Cambodian inventors or authors who don’t want to share their achievements in fear that their own products being plagiarized and commercialized. This also frustrated many Cambodians from creating new inventions because their ideas will be easily copied and used with impunity.

 “Under Creative Common license, both creators and users are beneficial because users can utilize any inventions without asking permission from creators, but users have to follow some rights reserved by creators, and creators can make their invention licensed without any charging,” said Mr. Piseth, adding, “ it’s a so-called mutual understanding and respect with ethics among users and creators.” At the end of the session, a number of questions and answers were exchanged among curious participants and KHAD team.

Creative Commons license is a free and easy-to-use copyright licenses providing a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use one’s creative work — on conditions of one’s choice. CC licenses let one easily change one’s copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” Creative Common licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable one’s to modify one’s copyright terms to best suit your needs.