How to resist the Wall Street Consensus: the maneuverability of a Vietnamese green state within international financial subordination

Abstract

Between 2017 and 2021, Vietnam saw the fastest annual proportional increase in renewables ever seen across the world. This was financially supported by the state-owned energy company, Vietnam Electric (EVN), with debt and equity from domestic and Asian regional sources. Vietnam’s experience contributes to an emerging research agenda at the intersection of the ‘green state’ and ‘international financial subordination’: It questions the Wall Street Consensus’s concern about international finance limiting host countries’ policy maneuverability. Drawing on primary data from 33 interviews, I analyze Vietnam’s experience through the case of EVN. I find that within its international financial constraints, Vietnam resisted the Wall Street Consensus. Instead, Vietnam used feed-in-tariffs as a less restrictive de-risking tool to attract domestic and regional financiers who assessed project risks differently from their Western counterparts. I show how the Vietnamese state did this by using EVN as a tool for market-creation through mission-driven and state-owned enterprise (SOE)-orchestrated de-risking – without resorting to the debilitating guarantees entailed by the Wall Street Consensus. Extrapolating from the Vietnamese case, I argue that Global South countries may be able to resist the Wall Street Consensus and maintain sufficient maneuverability for a green state approach despite the limitations imposed by international financial subordination.