Exploiting Ideology and Making Higher Education Serve Vietnam’s Authoritarian Regime

Abstract

This article shows how the Communist Party of Vietnam has proactively deployed ideological indoctrination in the higher education system to raise submissive youth as well as to suppress dissenting academics. By demonstrating the use of organizational constraint and ideological exploitation strategies, I propose that post-totalitarian regimes’ political ideology should not just be viewed as a static set of theories or some official claims by the ruling party. Rather, an examination of how states strategically use ideological principles on a day-to-day basis gives us a more nuanced understanding. That is, ideology can be deployed as an effective tool to cultivate loyalty in students and signal a regime’s strength to suppress academics’ dissent. The article illustrates how educational organizations, once having their norms and disciplines embedded in political ideology, can act effectively to consolidate authoritarian regimes at a deeper level.