Vietnam and the challenge of political civil society

Contemporary Southeast Asia

Volumn 31, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 1-27

  Thayer, Carlyle A ^a  

^a University of Canberra   (Australia)

Author keywords

Bloc 8406; Civil society; Mono organizational socialism; Political civil society; Viet Tan; Vietnam; Everyday politics

Indexed keywords

EID: 85050846056     PISSN: 0129797X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1355/cs31-1a     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Such as the Association of Former Political Prisoners, Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam, Free Journalists Association of Vietnam, and Vietnam Political and Religious Prisoners Friendship Association.
2. Note the absence of any discussion of political civil society groups in Forms of Engagement Between State Agencies & Civil Society Organizations in Vietnam: Study Report (Hanoi: VUFO-NGO Resource Centre, December 2008). This report was prepared for the international donor community and was funded by the Finnish Department for International Development. As will become apparent in the discussion below, the term Vietnamese NGO is used advisedly. I would prefer to preface it with the words “so-called” or put NGO in quotation marks. But for stylistic reasons I have limited these descriptors.
3. Carlyle A. Thayer, “Political Dissent and Political Reform in Vietnam, 1997–2002”, in The Power of Ideas: Intellectual Input and Political Change in East and Southeast Asia, edited by Claudia Derichs and Thomas Heberer (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press, 2006), pp. 115–32.
4. Carlyle A. Thayer, “Mono-Organizational Socialism and the State”, in Vietnam’s Rural Transformation, edited by Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet and Doug J. Porter (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 39–64.
5. Bach Tan Sinh, “Civil Society and NGOs in Vietnam: Some Initial Thoughts on Developments and Obstacles”, paper presented to the meeting with the Delegation of the Swedish Parliamentary Commission on Swedish Policy for Global Development to Vietnam, Hanoi, 2 March 2001, p. 4.
6. Gita Sabharwal and Than Thi Thien Huong, “Civil Society in Vietnam: Moving from the Margins to the Mainstream” (CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, July 2005), p. 4
7. Oscar Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam: A Tale of Calculated Misunderstandings”, in Development Brokers and Translators: The Ethnography of Aid and Agencies, edited by David Lewis and David Mosse (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press Inc., 2006), p. 102.
8. An empirical survey conducted in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City recorded more than 700 “civic organizations”, most of which had been established after 1986; Joerg Wischermann and Nguyen Quang Vinh, “The Relationship between Civic and Govenmental Organizations in Vietnam: Selected Findings”, in Getting Organized in Vietnam: Moving in and around the Socialist State, edited by Ben J. Tria Kerkvliet, Russell H.K. Heng, and David W.H. Koh (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003), p. 186.
9. Mark Sidel, “The Emergence of a Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, in Emerging Civil Society in the Asia Pacific Community, edited by Tadashi Yamamoto (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995), pp. 294–96.
10. Mark Sidel, “The Emergence of a Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, in Emerging Civil Society in the Asia Pacific Community, edited by Tadashi Yamamoto (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995), 293–94.
11. Thayer, “Mono-Organizational Socialism and the State”, op. cit., p. 54.
12. Wischermann and Vinh, “The Relationship between Civic and Governmental Organizations in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 186.
13. Thaveeporn Vasavakul, “From Fence-Breaking to Networking: Interests, Popular Organizations, and Policy Influences in Post-Socialist Vietnam”, in Getting Organized in Vietnam, edited by Kerkvliet, Heng and Koh op. cit., pp. 26–28.
14. Key legal documents included: Decree 35/CP (1992), “On Some Measures to Encourage Scientific and Technological Activities”; Decree 29/1998/ND-CP (11 May 1998); Decree 71/1998/ND-CP (8 September 1998); Decree 07/1999/ND-CP (13 February 1999); Decree 177 (1999) on charity and social funds; and Law on Science and Technology (2000).
15. Irene Norlund, “Filling the Gap: The Emerging Civil Society in Viet Nam” (CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, January 2007), p. 11.
16. Joseph Hannah, Local Non-Government Organizations in Vietnam: Development, Civil Society and State-society Relations, Ph.D. dissertation (Seattle: University of Washington, 2007), p. 54.
17. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., pp. 117–18.
18. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 106.
19. Joseph Hannah, “Civil-Society Actors and Action in Viet-Nam: Preliminary Empirical Results and Sketches from an Evolving Debate”, in Towards Good Society: Civil Society Actors, the State and the Business Class in Southeast Asia — Facilitators of or Impediments to a Strong, Democratic, and Fair Society? (Berlin: Heinrich Böll Stiftung, 2005), p. 105.
20. Examples include the Rural Development Services Centre established in 1994; Social Development Research and Consultancy and Research and Training Centre for Community Development formed in 1996.
21. Vasavakul, “From Fence-Breaking to Networking”, op. cit., p. 28.
22. Hannah, “Civil-Society Actors and Action in Viet-Nam”, op. cit., pp. 107–08. Decree 35/CP was entitled, “Some Measures to Encourage Scientific and Technological Activities”.
23. Kathrin Pedersen quoted in Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 118.
24. Michael Gray, “Creating Civil Society? The Emergence of NGOs in Vietnam”, Development and Change 30, no. 4 (October 1999): 698.
25. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 119.
26. Hannah, “Civil-Society Actors and Action in Viet-Nam”, op. cit., p. 107, writes that attempts to draft a Law on NGOs was a fifteen-year closed door effort.
27. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 120.
28. Hannah, “Civil-Society Actors and Action in Viet-Nam”, op. cit., p. 107 and Sabharwal and Than Thi Thien Huong, “Civil Society in Vietnam: Moving from the Margins to the Mainstream”, op. cit., p. 4.
29. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., pp. 105–06.
30. There is a vast literature on this subject. For an overview see Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004) and Carlyle A. Thayer, “Political Reform in Vietnam: Doi Moi and the Emergence of Civil Society”, in The Developments of Civil Society in Communist Systems, edited by Robert F. Miller (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), pp. 110–29.
31. Summarized in Bach Tan Sinh, “Civil Society and NGOs in Vietnam”, op. cit., pp. 2–3.
32. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., pp. 102–04.
33. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 105 and Hy V. Luong, “The State, Local Associations, and Alternate Civilities in Rural Northern Vietnam”, in Civil Life, Globalization, and Political Change in Asia: Organizing Between Family and State, edited by Robert P. Weller (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 123–47.
34. This section draws on Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., p. 104 and Hoang Ngoc Giao, “Association of Civil Society in Vietnam”, January 2007, p. 1, paper posted on the website of the Legal Reform Assistance Project .
35. Hoang Ngoc Giao, “Association of Civil Society in Vietnam”, argues that although Article 69 of the state constitution permits freedom of association, the activities of such associations can be curtailed by the state. Giao does not question the hegemony of Vietnam’s one-party system.
36. Lu Phuong, “Xa Hoi Cong Dan: Tu Triet Tieu Den Phuc Hoi”, paper prepared for “Vietnam: Doi Moi, the State and Civil Society”, Vietnam Update 1994 Conference, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, 10–11 November 1994. Lu Phuong was prevented by Vietnamese authorities from attending this conference.
37. Salemink, “Translating, Interpreting, and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam”, op. cit., pp. 121–22.
38. Thayer, “Political Dissent and Political Reform in Vietnam, 1997–2002”, op. cit.
39. This section draws heavily on research carried out by Bill Hayton that will appear in his forthcoming book, The New Vietnam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). Hayton is the former BBC correspondent stationed in Hanoi.
40. Frequently translated as For the People’s Party (FPP).
41. Hoang Minh Chinh passed away on 7 February 2008.
42. Carlyle A. Thayer, “Vietnam: The Tenth Party Congress and After”, in Southeast Asian Affairs 2007, edited by Daljit Singh and Lorraine C. Salazar (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007), pp. 381–97. The discussion of Bloc 8406 that follows is drawn from this source.
43. Human Rights Watch, “Vietnam: Fledgling Democracy Movement Under Threat”, 10 May 2006.
44. “Tuyen Ngon Tu Do Dan Chu Cho Viet-Nam Nam 2006”, 8 April 2006. One signatory to the 6 April appeal withdrew, and three new signatories were added for a total of 118.
45. Fourteen Catholic priests in Hue signed the manifesto. The nine signatories from Hanoi included lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, long-time dissident Hoang Minh Chinh, three former army officers (including the former editor of the Military History Review), the wives of two dissidents a writer and an academic.
46. Matt Steinglass, “Dissident Numbers Grow in Vietnam”, Voice of America, 16 October 2006.
47. Kay Johnson, “Voices of Dissent”, Time Asia, 18 September 2006.
48. Luisetta Mudie, “Vietnam Nervous Over Emerging Pro-Democracy Voices”, Radio Free Asia, 29 September 2006.
49. The role of the PDP and VPP was discussed earlier. It might be argued that their foreign origins rule out these groups as authentic political civil society groups in Vietnam. But in an era of globalization where the role of diaspora communities has assumed increasing importance, exclusion on these grounds seems arbitrary.
50. Material on the Viet Tan is drawn from Carlyle A. Thayer, “Mot bai viet ve dang Viet Tan”, BBC World Service, Vietnamese Service, 4 May 2007.
51. Quoc Minh, “Reactionary terrorist groups casts spectral shadow over democracy”, Vietnam News Service, 30 March 2007 and Commentary, “Overseas Organizations Acts Against National Interest”, Voice of Vietnam, 2 April 2007.
52. Viet Tan Party, “Response to Attacks on Viet Tan by Communist Vietnam’s State-Run Media”, 1 April 2007.
53. On 28 October 2003, Australia’s ABC TV Foreign Correspondent programme aired an interview with a member of the Viet Tan and claimed this was the first public acknowledgement of the group in Vietnam.
54. Abuza is an exception. See Zachary Abuza, “Loyal Opposition: The Rise of Vietnamese Dissidents”, Harvard Asia Quarterly (2000), Internet edition and Zachary Abuza, Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001).
55. Nguyen Ngoc Giao, “The Media and The Emergence of a ‘Civil Society’”, Paper presented to Vietnam: Doi Moi, the State and Civil Society, Vietnam Update 1994 Conference, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, 10–11 November 1994.
56. The latter three patterns of political change have been adapted from Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), pp. 109–63.