Ford, Carter and Cambodia: US foreign policy and the Khmer Rouge

This thesis is an investigation into the US response to the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia between 1974 and 1981. It argues that the US experience in the Vietnam War acted as a causal factor in the formulation of its Cambodian policy during the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. From taking power in April 1975 to their removal by the Vietnamese in January 1979, the Khmer Rouge initiated a revolution unrivalled in the 20th Century for its brutality and for the total eradication of modern society. This thesis demonstrates that the Ford administration viewed Cambodia only as it pertained to their strategy in Vietnam and, following US disengagement from Indochina all but ignored the atrocities occurring there as they instead pursued informal relations with the Khmer Rouge as a means of punishing the Vietnamese. The Carter administration formulated a foreign policy based on human rights yet failed to adequately address the genocide that occurred in Cambodia due to its temporal and regional proximity to Vietnam. Instead, this collective reluctance to reengage with the region and the resulting anti-Vietnamese attitude reinforced Brzezinski’s broader global strategy that allied the US with China in support of an independent Cambodia to further isolate Hanoi. Thus this thesis argues that the distorting impact of the Vietnam War, as well as global Cold War calculations, undermined any appreciation of the Cambodian conflict and caused both administrations to pursue policies in Cambodia that ultimately supported the Khmer Rouge regime. This project incorporates declassified material from the Ford and Carter Presidential Libraries, supplemented by the material from the National Archives and Library of Congress, and relevant newspapers and periodicals. It demonstrates that the limitations placed upon US foreign policy by their experience in the Vietnam War may be used to reveal unexplored elements in US-Cambodian relations.

Restoring phronesis and practice: marketing's forgotten p's

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolution of marketing’s philosophical conversation over the past 120 years, focusing on the emergent meaning of the notion that marketing should become more “scientific”. Design/methodology/approach – This paper focuses on the US academic marketing literature, primarily journal articles and books published in the first half of the 20th century. Findings – The Aristotelian distinction between techné, epistemé and phronesis provides a rich basis for framing philosophical discussion in marketing, and should supplant the art-science debate and Anderson’s distinction between science1 and science2. Prior to 1959, the marketing journals provided a forum for phronesis, though this diminished as the academic marketing community largely abandoned the inductive, contextual approach in favour of a deductive, “scientific” methodology. The Ford Foundation played an important role in effecting this change. Practical implications – The paper highlights the importance of forums where practitioners can reflect on the ethical and social implications of their practices and then work to enhance these practices for the greater social good. Social implications – Questions the value of distinctions between marketing theorists and practitioners and the consequential focus of marketing journals. Originality/value – Advances the concept of phronesis in the marketing literature and distinguishes it from epistemé, which has dominated academic marketing discourse over the past 60 years.