Vietnam. Vietnam: Rethinking the state. By Martin Gainsborough. London: Zed Books, 2010. 224 pages. Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Abstract

Vietnam: Rethinking the state By MARTIN GAINSBOROUGH London: Zed Books, 2010. 224 pages. Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000507 Martin Gainsborough's Vietnam: Rethinking the state makes an important contribution to the small but growing body of literature on politics in contemporary Vietnam. The book advances our understanding of politics and the state in Vietnam, as it sets out to do, despite an analysis perched on the somewhat awkward assumption that 'if we are to stand a chance of shedding light on the state it is important that as researchers we do not focus directly on it' (p. 3). The focus of the book then, we soon learn, is more on business, state business, and state--business relations than the 'state' as it is conventionally understood. An analysis of business, says Gainsborough, provides 'a particularly fruitful window onto the political, and ultimately the nature of the state'. And he is right, to a point. Among Vietnam: Rethinking the state's most important contributions are the admonitions it issues forth toward those interested in Vietnamese politics. For example, Gainsborough suggests a need to jettison perspectives on the last two decades of social history in Vietnam as primarily a process of 'reform', as some observers have done, or giving undue emphasis to 'change', as continuities with the past are deep and pervasive. Such a perspective, he warns, overestimates the significance of policy processes vis-a-vis the more 'Machiavellian aspects of politics', such as competitions for power, resources, and patronage. Making this simple but important point is a contribution in its own right. Beyond the introductory chapter, the book rethinks the state through chapters that address such concerns as Communist Party rule, new state--business interests, corruption, the 'hollowing out' of the state, local politics, rent-seeking, and elite resilience. The reader might be somewhat disappointed to learn that the analysis of Communist Party rule includes no analysis of the Communist Party per se, but instead a freewheeling (though at times stimulating) survey of the qualities of several discernible (or imagined) 'classes' that Western social theory says are necessary for development of democracy which, in any case, is an eventuality which Gainsborough does not foresee. Subsequent chapters on state--business interests and corruption focus mostly on developments in Ho Chi Minh City in the late 1990s, a municipality that is to this day widely regarded at the forefront of 'reformism'. Gainsborough reveals why such a label is so problematic, demonstrating how, as in other regions, the local state apparatus appears to function mainly as a gatekeeper for rent-seeking of various stripes, mostly emanating from within the state. Across several chapters toward the middle of the book, Gainsborough offers insightful analyses of corruption and the 'equitisation' process (i.e. the transfer of state enterprises to private, oh pardon me--'non-state' ownership) and its relation to central-local relations. Much of this discussion is focused on Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's commercial hub and most populous city. …