How foreign government and non-governmental agencies have promoted political rights in Vietnam (Part 3)

How foreign government and non-governmental agencies have promoted political rights in Vietnam (Part 1, Part 2. Part 3)

Seohee Kwak

3. Conclusion

Foreign actors have different backgrounds and approaches, and each plays a very limited role in promoting greater political rights and freedom for the Vietnamese people. From the thematic analysis, I found that most engagement of foreign actors followed two patterns: (i) non-confrontational normative dissemination and (ii) informal support to social organizations. Regarding the first, foreign actors attached importance to normative dissemination and availed of financial and technical support to raise awareness among state actors. This path does not yield quick outcomes, but it is widely regarded as a safer option to preserve relationships and thus continue working towards the goal of nurturing enabling conditions for greater political freedom in the long run. Foreign actors’ commitment to disseminating democratic norms stems from their conviction that state actors and citizens will become increasingly comfortable with the values of political rights and freedom and thus recognize the need to adopt democratic norms themselves. Foreign actors hardly deviated from the given political system, and their status and role conceptually and empirically has boiled down to a low-key agent of normative promotion.

Regarding the second pattern, foreign actors formally and informally supported Vietnamese social organizations and activists. However, such support has generally reflected foreign actors’ expectation of a contribution to the development of a Vietnamese civil society. Most, if not all, foreign actors made a pragmatic compromise between their normative ambitions and the Vietnamese political realities, and adapted to the given formal political institutions. Rather than targeting the general Vietnamese citizenry, the foreign actors in this analysis tended to target social organizations to help them play a more active and independent role in civil society, to help them effectively raise voices for a common cause or engage in policy change. In this respect, foreign actors provided informal support to Vietnamese social organizations working on advocacy, campaigning and research committed to promoting greater political rights and freedom in the expectation of civil society development.

The research question posed in this paper was how foreign actors have engaged in promoting better conditions for political action in Vietnam. Overall, I see little chance of institutional changes led by foreign actors anytime soon, considering the strategic positioning observed among many actors, which sought to avoid confrontations with the party-state and focused on policy advocacy and normative promotion. At most, foreign actors can be characterized as low-key mediators in promoting greater political rights and freedom. Nevertheless, their commitment to normative promotion cannot be overlooked and their influence on the formal political institutions remains to be seen in the longer term.

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Appendix 1. List of the interviewees

Notes.

1. V: Vietnamese / F: Foreigner.

2. To maintain anonymity and confidentiality, job titles of some interviewees were simplified when they may hint who (s)he is.

Appendix 2. Projects of foreign actors for thematic analysis

Notes.
1. The project period for each project may have different fiscal year criteria. This table is based on the collected data. Also, I indicate the period based on the information in the collected documents. Therefore, actual project periods may differ.
2. EIDHR consists of micro-project grant programs in four campaign sectors, and Vietnam was selected for Campaign 2 and 4, respectively, ‘fostering a culture of human rights’ and ‘advancing equality, tolerance and peace’.