Political Reform and Political Change in Communist Countries: Implications for Vietnam

This chapter analyzes the implications of recent political change for political structural reform in Vietnam. It suggests that different chains of events have been operating in different cases, and shows why developments in Vietnam have not followed the same course as in Eastern Europe. The chapter provides a typology of communist regimes, with particular reference to China and Vietnam. China and Vietnam have been broadly similar in their pursuit of limited political reforms while experimenting with economic reforms. The chapter presents the speculation on alternative political futures for Vietnam in the 1990s. Political liberalization in Vietnam, as in China, amounted to relaxing the domination of life and especially economic activity by ideology, permitting a broader range of opinion within party-state structures concerning policy, and strengthening the constitutional, legal, electoral, partliamentary, and state aspects of the political system.