Long Le is currently a visiting professor at University of Houston. He is also the author of the web forum Tomorrow Vietnamese Forum (TVF). His research focuses on Vietnam's development, the Vietnamese American community, and the relations between overseas Vietnamese communities and Vietnam. His articles have appeared in periodicals such as Harvard Asia Quarterly, Migration Letters, The Washington Times, Houston Chronicle, and Orange County Register.

Abstract

There is evidence that Vietnam's integration to the global economy is increasing the development of, some even argue of an independent, civil society in one of the last communist nations in the world.

A number of scholars have argued that the hallmark of economic reform, decentralization, will not only undermine and incapacitate the country's Leninist institutions, but also mandates new institutions to guide and direct the emerging energy and enthusiasm of a great numbers of citizens. Indeed, "marketization" has weakened the country's Leninist institutions of social and political control -- like the household registration system, state-employment system, and the networks of neighborhood police and their auxiliary committees once in place to keep citizens' lives within the bounds of the state. Moreover, decentralization has unleashed dynamic forces -- a popular mass culture, a gap between private belief and official ideology, a variety of civic and professional organizations seeking space apart from the state -- that potentially can reduce the state's control over society and provide support for democratic norms and procedures. 

But economic reform as devised by the Vietnamese Communist Party was not intended to produce these externalities. Rather, they came about because economic reform had been conducted in ad hoc manner. In response, the Party in recent years has put in place new policies and practices to regulate its civil society in which the personal, economic, cultural, transnational, political spaces, as they are growing, do not have interests independent of state control. These new polices and practices include requiring IDs or passports at Internet cafe and obliging Internet cafe owners to document what web sites their clients visit; requiring all foreign embassies, companies and institutions to present their public documents, statements and reports for approval; and compelling civic and religious organizations and their elected leaders to register for government's approval before operating.

Vietnam desires to demonstrate that authoritarian regimes can practice various sorts of popular participation very well at the local and without losing its ideology or authority. The result, according to empirical evidence, suggests that civil society and its actors in Vietnam does not necessary produce support for democratic norms. A study has found that those who are "hyperactive" in civil society have the lowest levels of social trust. Also, some of the strongest negative relationship between activity and trust is found among those who belong in public interest groups; even educational/cultural groups who are less dependent on the state are somewhat less trustful of others. Furthermore, personal trust in Vietnam functions in unpredictable ways. The same study shows that those who say they must be careful about their fellow citizens are more interested in politics. Thus, the development of Vietnam's civil society does not correspond to the predicted direction. But if we analyze civil society under the communist rule context, the fact that the personal, economic, cultural, transnational, political spaces are growing, although not independent of state control, suggests the building of a modern communist Vietnam rather than some form of democracy as witnessed in the region.

These are some of the developments in the making of civil society in communist Vietnam that will be discussed in the presentation. Comparison between Vietnam's civil society and other Southeast Asia countries will also be included in the presentation.