Descriptive Introduction
The country of Vietnam has gone through monumental changes and transformations since 1950, passing through a long period of the world-wide known Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, followed by the major changes politically, economically, culturally, strategically, and administratively as well as regionally and internationally. Since the 1986 “Doi Moi” (Renovation), Vietnam has gradually become one of the most dynamic emerging countries in the world with a high and steady economic growth rate for the past ten years. Obviously, public administration and policy plays a critical role to this success in Vietnam.
In this Special Issue, we publish five significant papers that focus on a wide variety of topics related to Public Administration and Policy in Vietnam. Topics include, but not limited to, citizen participation on local government performance, women’s participation in public administration, bribery and corruption, performance management in public sector, and foreign direct investment. Articles were carefully reviewed and selected using several major criteria, and all completed papers went through a triple review process, including two rounds of anonymous reviews and double external reviews beyond the first guest editor’s control—all handled by the IJPA’s editor-in-chief. Some full papers were rejected and did not make it to the article stage; others went through revisions and sometimes multiple times, again through external anonymous review processes.
Below is a short summary of these studies and some highlights of the significant findings they provide.
The first article, (Democratic governance: Examining the influence of citizen participation on local government performance in Vietnam), is a study conducted by Hue Trinh and Tung-Wen Sun. It investigates the effects of citizen participation on the performance of local governments in Vietnam with four different aspects including economic, institutional, political and administrative in terms of democratic governance. Analysing data from four sources including the Public Administration Performance Index, the Provincial Competitiveness Index, the Public Administration Reform Index, and the General Statistics Office of 63 provinces of Vietnam from 2012 to 2017, the authors find that the effects of citizen participation is positive or negative depending on diverse aspects of local government performance. They suggest Vietnamese government should support citizen participation in various ways. Policymakers should pay attention to specific aspects of local government performance that citizens would want to see positive impacts. Local government should enhance institutional factors that improve the efficiency of public services and allow full and equitable involvement of stakeholders in the citizen-centred provincial governance systems. In addition, the authors believe that citizen participation is crucial for strengthening political performance to make the government more transparent, accountable and less corruptive. Finally, policy makers should educate and truly empower ethnic minorities in remote areas to participate in public policy.
The second article (Women’s Participation in Public Administration in Vietnam: A Case Study of Policy and Practice from 1986 to the present), conducted by Dao Nguyen, presents a comprehensive review and analysis of women’s role in public administration in Vietnam. Using a qualitative research method, the author synthesizes a wide range of data and research and concludes that the women’s participation in public administration in Vietnam has improved since 1986 thanks to the enforcement of the national machinery for gender equality and the promulgation of a series of legislation and policies. However, the study shows that women’s participation in top leading positions is still low and fluctuated in all levels. Key barriers include structural biases on gender, weak gender equality national machinery, and socio-cultural norms. Women’s participation at provincial level increased and decreased in opposite direction of women’s participation at other levels, i.e., central and local levels. There were more female leaders at central and local levels during the period of late 1980s to 2002. From 2002 to 2011, the reality of their participation was rather gloomy. However, there has been a good sign that women’s participation in public administration is on the rise again within the past decade and will continue to improve at least in the next term of 2021-2026. The author emphasises that women at the provincial level need better structural support to have more participation in public administration and calls for an urgent fix on irrelevances in structural gender biases, a greater inclusion of powerful agencies to present a stronger voice for gender equality policy advocacy, and an equal opportunity for women’s participation and advancement in public administration.
The third article, (Social Status, Norms and Bribe-Giving Behaviors of Citizens in Vietnam), conducted by Le Chanh and Nguyen Anh, examines the impacts of social status and norms on the individual’s attempt to commit to bribe-giving to access public services. Using adapted data from the Vietnam Global Corruption Barometer and Vietnam Public Administration Performance Index surveys, the author finds that individuals with high education are less likely to give bribes because of their strong capabilities, alternatives, and bargaining power over public officials. Those with low education are more likely to engage in bribery since they have low social status, and they pay bribes due to fear and anxiety. The poor and the unemployed have low bargaining power and receive less benefits from bribery so they are less likely to give bribes. The study also suggests that bribe-giving behaviors of citizens are strongly associated with social and cultural norms of corruption in Vietnam. The author calls for anti-corruption policies that emphasise on multiple measures including increasing the bargaining power of individuals vis-à-vis public officials and educating citizens on the anti-corruption laws and their rights. Policies to protect low socioeconomic groups can eliminate fear and anxiety when they access public services.
The fourth article, (Performance management in the Vietnam public sector: the role of institution, traditional culture and leadership), is a study conducted by Tai Anh Vu and his colleagues. It examines the role of antecedents of performance management, which is construed in this study as a needed innovation in the public administration context of Vietnam. The authors find that accountability, servant leadership and entrepreneurial leadership intensified performance management innovation, while interpersonal relationships undermined this innovation effort. Servant and entrepreneurial leaderships not only directly impact the development of performance management but also restrain the negative effect of traditional culture and support accountability. The study emphasizes the role of entrepreneurial leaders in overcoming institutional and cultural challenges in the innovation process. The results indicate that increased accountability forces public organisations to use resources, including people, more effectively. The authors highlight that it is critical to hold top leaders in public sector organisations accountable for the organization’s performance as it makes them focus on improving organisational performance rather than seeking patronage. As the government is developing the next group of strategic leaders, this study underscores leadership competency, work achievements, serving attitude, integrity and entrepreneurial spirit in addition to political criteria and suggests that the appointment of chief executives in public organisations and government agencies should be carried out in open and transparent ways with citizen oversight.
The fifth and last article, (Factors affecting Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Performance in Developing Economies: Evidence from Vietnam), is a study conducted by Manh Hung Do and Sang Chul Park. It examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) as a channel of fiscal and administrative decentralization on economic performance in Vietnam. Analysing data from four sources including the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO), the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), the author finds that fiscal decentralization in the terms of better tax revenue and spending on development investment have a positive and significant impact on FDI per capita. Central government should support the process of decentralization, both fiscally and administratively. Foreign investors appear to invest more in provinces/cities with higher population density but lower level of urbanization. The author also finds that the capability of local government plays an important role in attracting FDI in Vietnam since provinces with higher level of local government’s active support to local enterprises appear to have higher amount of FDI per capita. Provinces/cities with higher “unofficial expenditure” tend to have lower amount of FDI per capita. The author emphasizes that controlling of corruption at local levels is critical to attract FDI in Vietnam and suggests local government leaders to improve their public administration and service quality to attract greater attention of foreign investors.
In summary, these studies shed light on a wide range of public administration and policy areas and issues in Vietnam. They offer valuable readings not only for scholars in the field of public administration but also for policy makers, government agency leaders at all levels, public sector managers, and business practitioners. We are grateful to have received numerous high-quality manuscripts from many excellent scholars across the globe. We thank them for choosing our Special Issue for their valuable research manuscripts. Their contributions to the Special Issue and IJPA are highly appreciated. We look forward to many more in the future. We also appreciate IJPA and the publisher for the opportunity to publish this Special Issue on Vietnam.
December 5, 2021