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Vietnam: The Socialist Party State

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Comparative Politics of Southeast Asia

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Abstract

Vietnam is a communist one-party regime in transition. With the implementation of doi moi, the Communist Party of Vietnam replaced a centrally planned economy with a “socialist-oriented market economy.” The transition from a fully planned economy to a mixed economy generated dynamic economic growth and socioeconomic modernization that puts the Communist Party in a potentially vulnerable position. The Party has reacted resolutely against any demands for political liberalization or a more open political process. Overall, it appears that the communist rulers have successfully adapted the pillars of regime stability to changing international and domestic contexts. The strategy of economic transformation and institutional innovation has enabled the CPV to keep its regime coalition together and to reconcile increasingly diverse sectoral and regional interests. Today, the CPV is no longer a revolutionary party striving for a utopian socialist ideal, but a bureaucratic party seeking to preserve the political status quo. Three decades of reform have generated conflict between the government and society in general, within the Party, and within different social groups in various forms, indicated by a steadily growing number of protests since the late 1990s. But even with these challenges, communist party rule in Vietnam appears resilient and adaptive. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the political actors, institutions, and dynamics of Vietnam’s political system and summarizes its history and recent developments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    South Vietnam also had three constitutions, proclaimed in 1956, 1964, and 1967, respectively.

  2. 2.

    This effect is, of course, weaker in a parliament with no opposition than in multiparty legislatures (Gandhi 2008). Moreover, the mass organizations of the party, the structural amalgamation of party and state, and the alignment of cadre and economic interests provide a more effective way to allocate economic rents than the National Assembly (Schuler and Malesky 2014).

  3. 3.

    There were 13 parliamentary and presidential elections in South Vietnam, all of which were held under irregular conditions and can be considered semi-competitive at best (Wurfel 1967; Hartmann 2001).

  4. 4.

    Wintrobe (2009, p. 366) explains the dilemma as follows: “The use of repression of course breeds fear on the part of a dictator’s subjects, and this fear breeds reluctance on the part of the citizenry to signal displeasure with the dictator’s policies. This fear on their part in turn breeds fear on the part of the dictator, since, not knowing what the population thinks of his policies, he has no way of knowing what they are thinking and planning, and of course he suspects that what they are thinking and planning is his assassination. The problem is magnified the more the dictator rules by repression, i.e., through fear. The more his repressive apparatus stifles dissent and criticism, the less he knows how much support he really has among the population.”

  5. 5.

    The VGCL is organized into territorial and sectoral unions. There are about 100,000 workplace unions with 5.7 million members in the 63 provinces and cities; in addition, the 20 sector unions have a membership of about 1.58 million, organized into 6400 workplace unions.

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  1. Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Aurel Croissant & Philip Lorenz

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Croissant, A., Lorenz, P. (2018). Vietnam: The Socialist Party State. In: Comparative Politics of Southeast Asia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68182-5_12

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