Political violence and conflict resolution in Cambodia can be explained, claims Lizee, because harmony is only maintained when there is a weighted balance of power in favor of a hegemonic group, such as a political clan or monarchy. When a weaker body tries to redress this, it destroys the fabric of harmony, legitimizing violent behavior by the challenged party or grouping. This was probably the case in the fighting that erupted in July 1997, inaccurately characterized in much of the less critical literature as a “coup” by Prime Minister Hun Sen. Moreover, Lizee continues, the academic literature does not acknowledge such concepts, so it can provide no alternatives for the unsuccessful peacekeeping operation in Cambodia between 1991 and 1993. This process, it is claimed, is self-reinforcing because of the repetition of Western peace-creating assumptions, which are transmitted through globalization and which ignore difference in cultural traditions of conflict resolution and the use of violence in settling disputes.

The book is divided into four parts. The second part is directed toward proving the impropriety of the PPA by applying an analysis of cultural institutions and processes in Cambodia to the PPA. According to Lizee, the PPA was conceptually and culturally flawed from the outset, letting down Cambodians and Westerners alike. A great deal of this analysis is thoughtful and probably gleaned through personal insights into Cambodian culture, but it neglects the limitations specific to the evolution of the peace process. Lizee discuses the stages of the war and its movement to peace in a clear manner, and he concludes that the outcome of the political settlement is inappropriate for Cambodia. But this was not because people were ignorant of, or well versed in, Khmer culture. Rather, the limitations were those of geopolitical Cold War realism. The PPA did not take the shape and form that it did because not enough policymakers had an inside track on Cambodia. It took its rigid form because that was what the United States and China sought as conditions for normalization between them and Viet Nam and the USSR.

Throughout the peace process, and certainly up until mid-1990, Washington demanded inclusion of the Khmer Rouge, not because this made sense in terms of conflict resolution but because they were a tool with which to continue the confrontation with Hanoi. The peace process itself only broke through the impasse of the Cold War when the USSR and Viet Nam acquiesced to the terms and conditions for normalization. Lizee provides evidence of these processes, but he does not relate them to the PPA and the failure he identifies. Thus, to blame the whole failure on the cultural limitations of the peace plan is to neglect the overarching shaping process conducted as an adjunct to normalizing relations with Viet Nam and, to a lesser degree, Cambodia. It seems hard to blame either the PPA or the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) if their contours were shaped largely by the various constraints that framed and determined the peace process.

Part three of Lizee's work seeks lessons from the peacemaking experience in Cambodia that do not focus on orthodox arguments regarding technicalities and logistics. It teases with the suggestion that the author is going to provide some evidence as to why the main parties did not cooperate, but this is not forthcoming. A minor criticism is that Lizee describes the Cambodian people as being “fortunate enough to benefit” from the UNTAC operation (p. 139), which seems a little patronizing.

Part four argues that many important lessons from the 1993 experience were not incorporated into the 1998 elections. Lizee misses one crucial new experience, when the opposition refused to accept the victory of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP). The solution was found in the creation of the Senate, an unelected upper house into which the defeated parties' members could be dispersed in the traditional patronage and clientelist system of loyalty and reward. Also, Lizee takes a rather limited perspective on what he terms the “coup” of July 1997. Evidence available since then challenges strongly Lizee's view that Hun Sen was to blame. Furthermore, there is no reference to the fact that Hun Sen was publicly seeking to integrate the remaining Khmer Rouge while Ranariddh was engaged in covert processions with the intention of recruiting forces to influence the all-important balance of power against Hun Sen and the CPP. And there is no reference to Ranariddh being caught red-handed while smuggling weapons into Cambodia disguised as machine parts.

Despite the sometimes dense writing style (e.g., p. 47, para. 3; p. 76, para. 3), this work goes farther than most on this topic. It is especially welcome for offering a sophisticated conceptual alternative to the usual explanations for the failure of UNTAC as being rooted in administrative, technical, and logistical problems. It is marred, however, by certain evaluations, including the persistent reference to “failure” of UNTAC, which did surprisingly well in many areas. Any failure in conflict resolution was a fault neither of UNTAC as an institution nor its members (generally). The fault, as Lizee correctly argues, lies in the international nature of the PPA and the fact that the Cambodian conflict was not settled due to any concern for the Cambodian people. Rather, the PPA ended a superpower conflict in a manner that suited China and the United States. Those needs were incongruent with conflict resolution in Cambodia, and Lizee does well to illustrate this at certain points. With some exceptions, this is a valuable contribution to peace and conflict studies and to work on Khmer.