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Abstract
This paper analyzes the return to inter-factional violence and lack of a non-coercive political environment prior to Cambodia’s 1993 elections during 1992 to 1993 United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Typically, these have been attributed to the contingency of UNTAC’s belated deployment to Cambodia over the spring and summer of 1992 coupled with a lack of effective enforcement powers against anyone who challenged their authority, or the mission once deployed despite UNTAC’s ambitious and unique Civil Administration mandate for direct UN oversight of Cambodia’s four main political factions. Complicating this standard interpretation, this paper argues that the continuation during the mission of Cambodia’s post-1989 land titling process under the control of the State of Cambodia (SOC) faction proved structurally fatal for UNTAC’s Civil Administration mandate.