The Political Logic of Interest Group Contestation in Vietnam's Economic Reforms.

Dominant elite groups? interest lies in avoiding shocks to the status quo. One therefore expects strong states with entrenched elites to exhibit little change, unless such change provides benefits to the elite. Vietnam's economic success model, however, is built on top-down change in which a powerful, entrenched Communist Party decided to decentralize economic power. The paper identifies a political logic of harmony of interest among four interests groups: central political elites, their provincial counterparts, foreign investors and mobile labor. Under conditions of factor mobility, once foreign capital enters the country and empowers local reformist leaders, the benefits from capital inflows create a political logic which no interest group has an incentive to reverse. Due to scarcity of labor in certain parts of the country, even non-elite groups gain bargaining power from their ability to migrate. Power partially devolves from the center to provinces and from political and economic elites to non-elites. Owing to this harmony of interest, in Vietnam a political logic for reform emerged that set the authoritarian system on a course toward decentralizing reforms. These reforms subsequently caused the emergence of checks and balances to the elite's coercive powers - crucial aspects of Vietnam's economic success story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]