The Forgotten Movement: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement

Utilizing recent research and monographs from participants and observers, this paper reports on the underanalyzed Vietnam antiwar movement. Key events are placed in a historical context that help to explain the origins of the movement. Particular attention is given to the various responses of the state to the challengers and the complex interrelationships with the media. As the antiwar movement grew and developed, there were multiple factors that contributed to solidarity and factionalism within the movement. Despite state repressive actions and internal factionalism, the movement was successful in helping to end the war. The effects on U.S. policies were more indirect than direct. The antiwar movement mobilized millions of citizens to public protest. The demonstrations helped to shift public opinion away from supporting the war and activated third parties to question and demand an end to war policies. The political system did respond to the antiwar movement's demands.     

Negotiating Compliance: The Case of Autonomous Hospitals in Vietnam

Maternal death is one of the highest causes of global mortality. Governments have long used regulation to improve maternal health but concurrent fiscal‐decentralisation reforms can undermine clinical performance. This article focuses on public Vietnamese hospitals to explore how regulatory compliance is pursued in decentralised health facilities, since Vietnam has seen increasing autonomisation of public hospitals in the last decade while simultaneously experiencing marked reductions in the maternal mortality ratio. Our analysis suggests that autonomisation has allowed regional regulatory regimes to emerge and that regulatory compliance must compete with other priorities. Compliance can therefore be rethought as a negotiation having implications for how government and maternal health advocates persuade self‐sufficient hospitals to take on wider health‐system goals.     

The Motivational Interpretation of Institutions

Lorsqu'on distingue la motivation de rle de la motivation personnelle sentie, les institutions humaines peuvent ětre analysées sans que l'analyse soit liée a une explication psychologique ou structurelle. La position de ≪ l'individualisme méthodologique ≫ si souvent préconisée par Homans embrouille, à notre point de vue, I'étude des institutions. Pour autant le sociologisme n'est pas un choix forcé. Les relations entre la structure et le sentiment sont seulement brouillées lorsqu'on identifie ≪ structure ≫ et ≪ autorité≫ et lorsqu'on considère que la charge émotive est synonyme de conduite non-structurée. Dans les deux cas, la coloration motivationnelle d'une relation de rôle est une partie du modèle particulier de l'institution.
When role motivation is distinguished from sentient and personal motivation, human institutions are subject to a kind of analysis which is bound neither to psychological nor structural explanation. The position of "methodological individualism," which Homans has argued at length, can be shown to confuse the study of institutions. But sociologism is not for that reason a forced choice. The relations of structure and sentiment are only confused where "authority" is identified with "structure" and positive effect considered to be unstructured behaviour. The motivational colouration of a role-relationship in either case is part of the given pattern of the institution.     

Making Good on Debt: The Remoralisation of Wealth in Post-Revolutionary Vietnam

Market reforms and newfound prosperity in Vietnam have been accompanied by ritual revival and an attention to the moral dimensions of political-economic transition. As revolutionary fervour fades, villagers struggle to reconcile long-standing beliefs about cong (merit), with both wartime losses and post-war opportunities. In one Red River Delta community, villagers have reinvented the pre-war institution of chu te (master of the high sacrifices), to serve as moral exemplar for the village. In this paper, the life story of the newly appointed chu te provides a framework for the examination of a larger process of moral transformation in Vietnam.     

The Institutional Capacity for Forest Devolution: The Case of Forest Land Allocation in Vietnam

The article assesses the institutional capacity of a devolution policy, namely forest land allocation (FLA) in Vietnam. We applied the governance capacity framework, which is based on the policy arrangement approach, to examine the extent to which the policy enables actors to work together in order to solve collective problems. The findings reveal that, overall, the institutional capacity of FLA in Vietnam is rather low, although it varies from region to region. This result is determined by the restricted and ambiguous codification of property rights, the limited resource availability, the symbolic venues for deliberation and the lack of openness of actors towards others’ views in the policy process. External factors, particularly agricultural development, also had a major impact on institutional capacity.     

The Political Economy of Supranational Institutions: Two Recent Contrary Standpoints

Book reviewed in this article: Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg and Marc A. Stern, Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21^st Century Lloyd Gruber, Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions     

The case: voices

Six caregivers comment on the aftermath of a patient's disabling stroke. Their remarks about the patient and his family situation reveal much about the dynamics of the hospital hierarchy--and, incidentally, the difficulty of uncovering the "facts."     

The curious case of case study: a viewpoint

Abstract

This paper focuses on microethical issues concerning interactions in which the process of informed consent occurs. It draws on research analysing the biographies and future hopes of 15- to 17-year-old girls and boys participating in targeted youth/educational programmes in the Helsinki area. The ethical challenge explored here is how to negotiate with the young interviewees on expanding the research setting towards a longitudinal and cross-generational approach, which also means expanding the data produced on their already well-reported lives. The paper highlights the power relations between adult researcher and young research participant, the contextual nature of gaining informed consent, and the conflict involved in trying to avoid hounding an over-surveilled group while still tracking their whereabouts and revisiting them for a follow-up interview.     

Asking for a Child: The Refashioning of Reproductive Space in Post-War Northern Vietnam

In the mid-1980s, population movement, wartime male mortality, and changing notions of marriageability converged to create a radically different marital terrain than that previously encountered by Vietnamese women. Finding themselves without suitable marriage prospects a small number of single women asked men they would not marry to get them pregnant. This paper focuses on three elements that contributed to this refashioning of reproductive space: the women's post-war experiences that prompted them to ‘ask for a child’, state policies that provided a different dynamic for bearing children out of wedlock, and the manner in which the Women's Union sought to provide social acceptance for women who ‘asked for a child’. As a result of the women's agency and the state's decision to incorporate single mothers into society a new reproductive space was forged in which ideologies of motherhood, family, and reproduction took on new meaning in post-war northern Vietnam.     

Grassroots Environmental Activism in an Authoritarian Context: The Trees Movement in Vietnam

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - There are increasing signs that the space for civil society actions is slowly opening up in Vietnam. The existing studies...     

The Origins and Influence of Land Property Rights in Vietnam

Vietnam's 1993 Land Law was intended not only to increase the security of farmers’usage rights to their land, but also to facilitate land transfers. Despite potential benefits, the actual issuance of land‐use rights certificates to farmers (as specified by the law) proceeded rather slowly in some regions. This article seeks to identify factors that explain the emergence of this form of property right as well as to measure its effect on agricultural production. The results suggest that the certificate's direct contribution may be rather small in the absence of the appropriate supporting conditions and institutions.