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How informal influence enters formal systems of power — and begins to override them Oct 6, 2026 · @Ngarm Abstract Contaminated power leakage names a governance risk that ordinary corruption law often misses: people with no public office gain privileged access to those who hold it, and their informal influence gradually reshapes how official power is used. The route in may be fame, social-media reach, kinship, friendship, wealth or patronage. None of these is illegitimate on its own. The problem starts when access turns into leverage, leverage into dependency, and dependency into decisions that public rules can no longer explain. This paper sharpens the concept, places it beside related ideas such as clientelism and state capture, and tests it against documented cases: Rasputin at the Romanov court, the Gupta family in South Africa, Jho Low and 1MDB in Malaysia, Cambodia's Oknha system, and the nationalist information war around the 2025 Cambodia–Thaila...

The Making of a National Identity On 24 June 1939, the government of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram officially changed the country’s international name from Siam to Thailand. The change was much more than a matter of terminology. It formed part of a wider nationalist project intended to construct a unified modern nation around a common idea of “Thainess.” Siam would briefly return as the country’s name after the Second World War before Thailand was restored permanently in 1949. The transformation raises an important historical question: What happens when a modern state attempts to turn a culturally diverse population into a single national identity? The territory governed from Bangkok was never culturally uniform. Its population included Central Thai, Lao-speaking communities in the northeast, northern peoples, Malay Muslims in the south, Chinese communities, Khmer-speaking populations and numerous highland and indigenous groups. Modern Thailand therefore emerged, li...

Dangerous Indicators of Changing Social Attitudes in Cambodia Cambodia may be facing a troubling shift in social attitudes. The concern is not simply that harmful behaviour exists—every society experiences crime, corruption, violence, manipulation and injustice. The deeper danger emerges when such behaviour gradually becomes normalised : when people begin to think, “This is how things work,” “Everyone does it,” or even, “There is nothing wrong with it as long as I benefit.” Several developments in Cambodia can be viewed through this lens. They occur at different levels of society and may appear unrelated, but together they raise an important question: Are we witnessing an erosion of the social boundaries that distinguish acceptable from unacceptable behaviour? When Making Money Becomes More Important Than How Money Is Made One disturbing indicator is the apparent normalisation of wealth accumulation without sufficient concern about how that wealth is generated. The gro...

Soth Plai Ngarm  Date: 10 April 2026 Singapore and Cambodia, two agile ASEAN nations, possess complementary strengths that create significant opportunities for deeper bilateral cooperation. Singapore offers world-class capital, technology, healthcare, and financial expertise, while Cambodia provides natural resources, agricultural potential, land, and a young workforce. Strengthening this relationship supports food security, economic resilience, and inclusive growth amid global uncertainties. Complementary Needs and Strengths Singapore’s Offerings for Cambodia Singapore brings advanced technology, healthcare excellence, and financial savvy. This includes: - Agri-tech innovations (precision farming, IoT sensors, climate-resilient varieties, and data-driven tools). - High-standard healthcare systems, training, and infrastructure support. - Fintech, banking expertise, investment capital, and governance best practices. These assets can help Cambodia modernize its economy, upgrade skill...

The underlying reason why Falun Gong is perceived as a threat by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not primarily about claims that it is an “evil cult” or socially harmful—those reflect the official state narrative. Rather, the concern stems from Falun Gong’s emergence as a large, independent, and ideologically distinct grassroots movement that challenged the CCP’s monopoly over organization, belief, and public loyalty in China. Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), founded in 1992 by , is a spiritual practice combining meditative exercises with moral teachings centered on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Drawing on Buddhist and Taoist traditions, it spread rapidly across China during the 1990s through informal networks, public practice, and word-of-mouth, without formal membership structures or state oversight. The 1999 Zhongnanhai Turning Point On April 25, 1999, more than 10,000 practitioners gathered peacefully near Zhongnanhai—the central leadership co...

Systemic Analysis of Cambodian Youth Anti-Social Behavior   An Online Research  by Soth Plai Ngarm  Feedback loops, risk pathways, leverage points, and references Core finding.  Cambodian youth anti-social behavior is better understood as an emergent systems problem than as an individual moral failure. It tends to arise when violence exposure, household stress, weak school attachment, deviant peer pressure, digital amplification, substance-related impulsivity, and poor access to mental health or protection support interact over time. The same system can be shifted by strengthening supportive relationships, early intervention, school belonging, and coordinated family-school-community responses. 1. Scope and analytical lens In this note, “anti-social behavior” refers to repeated behaviors that damage social trust or the safety of others, such as bullying, harassment, aggression, vandalism, chronic defiance linked to harm, online humiliation, and risky peer-...