Abstract
Since Cambodia inscribed the 11th century Hindu Temple of Preah Vihear at the World Cultural Heritage Committee（WHC）of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization（UNESCO）in 2008, this has resurrected the issues of nationalism and territorial sovereignty between Cambodia and Thailand over the Temple. Dating back to 1962, when the International Court of Justice judged that the Temple falls within Cambodian sovereignty, both sides complied with the court's decision, although the court did not rule which country exerted the territorial jurisdiction surrounding the vicinity of the Temple－an issue that had been neglected by both states for three decades. This paper investigates the “securitization” dimension of identity and societal relations in regard to the Temple at critical historical junctions between the two countries. It draws on the Copenhagen School of International Relations to investigate societal securitization, under which security concerns over identity are framed as security issues. The case under study encompasses many actors and their identities: state-, national-domestic, and local（un）civil society levels, such as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship（UDD: Red-shirts）and the People's Alliance for Democracy（PAD: Yellow-shirts）. This article traces the origin of the simmering contending problems over the Temple in Thai politics by phases: the 2001−6 Thaksin period; the post-Thakisn Samak and Somchai periods from 2006−8; and the anti-Thakin Abhisit period from 2008−11 in particular. Desecuritizing the Temple may be contingent upon the willingness of both governments and the local Red-and Yellow-shirts actors' attitudes to resort to an ASEAN-style conflict management - “appropriate ambiguity”, whereby the contending actors share in common a normative appropriateness, and downgrade conflicting identity politics. The year 2013 may see the verdict of the ICJ over the interpretation of the 1962 judgment and Cambodia's hosting of the WHC conference. These events can become a litmus test for desecuritzing the issue.
