State‑Society Relations In Vietnam: Strong or Weak State?

Abstract

It is easy to assume that because Vietnam is a communist country, the state and the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) dominate the society. This assessment was most likely true during the Vietnam War, when the northern Vietnamese regime effectively mobilized people and resources. With more in-depth research on Vietnamese state-society relations from the 1980s, this assessment has come under greater scrutiny. Some scholars now view the Vietnamese state as being weak, as opposed to the long-accepted idea that it is strong. The current mode of thinking about state-society relations in Vietnam is thus divided into the dichotomy of a strong or weak state. That is the state of affairs regarding the literature on state-society relations in Vietnam today. The view that the Vietnamese party-state dominates, leaving very litde space for society, has prevailed for some time. While this view is stark, it righdy points out that with a pervasive administrative machinery, the Vietnamese party-state permeates every level of society and controls and directs it. In this view, not only is there structural dominance of society by the party state, but the party-state also makes policies and then directs local authorities to implement those policies, which the society meekly accepts. There is also a parallel view that the political system in Vietnam is bureaucratic socialism because bureaucrats dominate the socialist party-state which in turn dominate the society. According to this view too, the party-state machinery is authoritarian and unresponsive to the people. These two views see the Vietnamese party state as strong in controlling and influencing Vietnamese society.2 What was missing from the picture was a systematic questioning of the assumption that dominance equals effectiveness. Valid questions include whether the policies decided by the Vietnamese state would be implemented to the letter, or whether what really happened was what was intended by the party-state. Furthermore, if the dot moi (renewal, or reform) reforms of the late 1980s were responses to society's pressures for change, of what currency is the view that the Vietnamese party-state dominates society? Indeed, research since the mid-1980s has managed to examine these questions in the light of