Political Dynamics of Grassroots Democracy in Vietnam.

• Author: Wells-Dang, Andrew
• Position: Book review

Political Dynamics of Grassroots Democracy in Vietnam. By Hai Hong Nguyen. Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Hardcover: 259pp.

Observers of Vietnam frequently consider the country as a case study of successful economic reforms without corresponding political reforms. Since the structure of the single-party state has remained virtually intact since reunification in 1976 under the rule of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), it is tempting to conclude that no significant political change has occurred.

Hai Hong Nguyen's book on "implementation of democracy at commune and ward levels" [thuc hien dan chu a cap xa, phuong, thi trdn), commonly referred to in English as "grassroots democracy" (GRD), is a welcome corrective to a static view of Vietnamese politics. Hai's research, based on a wealth of Vietnamese documentation as well as extensive interview data, shows that the emergence of GRD after rural unrest in 1997 was "a political reform rather than a 'PR' project" or mere propaganda (p. 38). Grassroots democracy, Hai argues, has been a "mutually empowering" process (p. 39) that has addressed the needs of citizens for greater political participation as well as the CPV's requirement for repairing and strengthening its legitimacy.

The implementation of GRD, however, has neither been smooth nor consistent across the country. Hai's focus, therefore, is on actual results of GRD policies in terms of inequality, corruption, good governance, human rights, rule of law and social capital. He embarks on in-depth case studies of three provinces (Thai Binh, where the protests that prompted the first GRD decree occurred; Hung Yen, where a serious land conflict culminated in 2012 with the seizure of farmland; and Danang, a booming city on the central coast), concluding that grassroots democracy policies have been effectively implemented in the third, partly so in the first, and not at all in the second. The reasons for divergent outcomes are found not in geographical location, but rather in specific contextual features summarized under the categories of economic development, strong individual leadership and vibrant social organizations.

As such, Political Dynamics is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Vietnamese politics written by "insider-outsiders": either international scholars who have spent long periods living and working in Vietnam, or (as in Hai's case) Vietnamese natives who have studied overseas but returned to conduct field...