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Sok Udom Deth

Portrait of Sok Udom   Deth

Dr. Sok Udom Deth ដេត សុខឧត្តម is an Associate Professor of International Relations and the Rector of Paragon International University (formerly Zaman University), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, specializing in modern Southeast Asian Studies.

With a B.A. in Sociology, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey (2006), a M.A. in Southeast Asian Studies, Ohio University, USA (2009) and a Ph.D in Southeast Asian Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany (2014), he is a member of the Board of Academic Advisors of Future Forum and a Senior Fellow at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP). 

Dr. Deth has been invited to give guest lectures at various institutions/​universities, and to comment Cambodian and regional affairs in local and international media. Occasionally, he shares his insights on local and regional media about Cambodian and regional affairs as well. During the 2025 border crisis between Thailand and Cambodia, he pleaded for a negotiation-based, diplomatic and long-term solution.

In 2024, he was awarded the Global Community Innovator Award by New York-based NGO Global Tassel.

Publications

  • “The Geopolitics of Cambodia during the Cold War Period,” Explorations, Vol. 9 (Spring 2009): 47 – 53.
  • “The Rise and Fall of Democratic Kampuchea,” Education About Asia, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Winter 2009): 27 – 30.
  • [with Daniel Bultmann] ​“The Afterglow of Hun Sen’s Cambodia? Socio-Economic Development, Political Change and the Persistence of Inequalities” in B. Rehbein, S. Wunkaeo, & C. B. Wungaeo (eds.), Twenty-first Century Globalization, Democracy and Alternative Futures: Challenges and Responses from Southeast Asia. Besingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
  • [with Serkan Bulut & Kairat Moldashev] ​“The Contemporary Geopolitics of Cambodia in Regional and Global Contexts”, in Simon Springer & Katherine Brickell (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia. London: Routledge, 2016.
  • [with Sun, Soun & Bulut, Serkan (eds.)] Cambodia’s Foreign Relations in Regional and Global Contexts. Phnom Penh: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2017.
  • [with Annaliza D. S. Tuazon] ​“Erdoğan’s Turkey: Peace Built on Sand?,” Journal of Human Rights and Peace Studies Vol. 4 – 9 (2018): 99 – 134.
  • “Labor Migration in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region: The Case of Cambodian Migrant Workers in Thailand.” Journal of Greater Mekong Studies (JGMS), No. 1 (2019): 65 – 73.
  • A History of Cambodia-Thailand Diplomatic Relations 1950 – 2020. Berlin & Phnom Penh: Galda Verlag, 2020.
  • [with Bradley J. Murg, Ou Virak & Michael Renfrew] Cambodia 2040 (Vols 1, 2 & 3). Phnom Penh: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and Future Forum, 2020.