Embedding Neoliberalism Through Statecraft: the Case of Market Reform in Vietnam

Abstract

In 1986 the Vietnamese government initiated a broad range of what it termed ‘socialist oriented, mixed economy market reforms’ in which the equitization or co phan hoa of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was to play a central role. The process began slowly but has increased in pace in the last few years as a consequence of external pressures from the IMF, the World Bank, and its most influential donors; positive lesson-drawing from China’s ‘reform and open door’ policy; negative lesson-drawing from Russian ‘shock therapy’; and, the acceptance by Vietnam’s governing elite of the need to create the conditions for the establishment of a new development trajectory that combines elements of both the developmental state and competition state models of economic development (see Soederberg in this volume). Furthermore, improving relations within the United States created an international political climate conducive to increasing the scope and intensity of domestic neoliberal policy change.