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A significant proportion of the world's work is done in contexts where the rule of law is absent or severely lacking. This paper describes one such context; that of contemporary Cambodia. Based on a literature review and extensive interviews with key informants the authors find that there are opportunities to embed labour markets in regulatory frameworks, even at the periphery of the global economy. In such contexts, however, it is suggested that orthodox models of legal and judicial reform, which focus on drafting better laws and building capacity in judicial and administrative institutions for their enforcement may not be the most effective way forward. Rather, the Cambodian experience suggests that the following were crucial in moving towards better protection of workers' rights: 1. understanding the limitations of law as an instrument for attainment of rights absent independent and accessible judicial institutions; 2. confronting the formidable barriers to the establishment of such institutions (and being open to alternative strategies); 3. recalling that law can have a powerful normative force, even without direct enforcement; 4. engaging with the way in which rights are attained through processes of social contest; and 5. supporting institutional forums for such contests to be played out in ways which maximize the potential for the disadvantaged to take part and tap in to the legitimating power of the law. Even adopting these strategies, however, it is noted that results have been uneven. In particular the poorest and most vulnerable workers are observed to have difficulty in extracting responsiveness from the sorts of systems described. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is broad agreement among scholars and practitioners on the importance of "good governance", "the rule of law" and "effective institutions" for ensuring positive development outcomes, we have a much poorer understanding of how such goals should be realized . Whether informed by modernization theory, Marxist perspectives or neoclassical assumptions, the prevailing imperatives guiding the work of development actors-from international agencies to national line ministries and local non-government organizations-tend to produce reforms that encourage (and in some cases actively require) rapid, linear, technically driven transitions to pre-determined end-state institutional forms deemed to be global "best practice." Drawing on two very different cases from Indonesia and Cambodia, we outline an alternative, more process oriented approach that focuses on building "interim institutions"-that is, formal or informal institutions concived of in terms of their potential to engage with and incrementally transform the political economies within which they exist. Successful interim institutional appraoches, we suggest, are hybrid in their nature-based on local knowledge but promoting principles of rule based, transparent and accountabile decision making-and acknowlede that they are working towards an end-state which must emerge through a process of social contestation and is thus largely unknowable ex ante. From this perspective, good governance is a product of "equitable political struggles," and a key goal of development assistance strategies should be to support the emergance of interim institutions which can both facilitate and be transformed by such struggles. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]