The MBA was a misfit when stuck in a meeting with the programmers.

These people will be standing on entrenched ground; they will not be distracted or seduced by the trivialisers, or the muddiers of the waters. Above all, those who care, including you, will be watching to see the direction of the great river of life.

It was roofed in with gold and silver beams, incrusted with pearls and jade.

There is little chance that the EU’s watchdogs have, until now, simply missed the evidence of a deeper malaise. The red flags signalling a democratic deficit have always been prominent: from the long-standing harassment, detention, and assassination of peaceful human rights defenders like Chea Vichea, Chut Wutty, and Tep Vanny, to ratcheting up efforts to deter civil society organisation through dubious, hostile legislation. More likely, the trade-offs between popular power and stability have been weighed by the EU and accepted, where these have tipped in its favour—in this case, shoring up a regional ally and trading partner, as well as delivering rapid rates of economic growth that have won Cambodia middle-income status, thus serving up a ready exemplar of neoliberal development logic.