Political parties and policy transfer in authoritarianism

ABSTRACT

While recognising the significance of political actors in policy transfer, research focuses more on the role of political elites than on political parties and is dominated by studies about Western democracies rather than authoritarian states. This article examines how the ruling party shapes merit-based policy transfer in authoritarian Vietnam. It finds that with the combined developmental and political motivation, the ruling party takes comprehensive control over the transfer process through their authority to initiate, navigate, and approve. The one-party structure has both facilitating and constraining effects, allowing the ruling party to adopt a selective policy transfer approach that results in meritocracy without neutral competence. The study shows the dialectical relationship between structure and agency in policy transfer. It also challenges the assumption that the separation of political and bureaucratic careers can be applicable in authoritarianism by showing that a politically neutral civil service is impossible in the context of highly politicised merit-based policy transfer.

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarian
• Vietnam
• policy transfer
• political party
• meritocracy

Acknowledgements

I thank Professor Mark Beeson and Associate Professor Jeannette Taylor, formerly working at the School of Social sciences, The University of Western Australia, for ideas and insightful comments during the development of the manuscript. I thank anonymous reviewers and APJPA editors for comments that improve the manuscript. I am also grateful for the Australian Endeavour Leadership Award that offers me the opportunity to do my research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Endeavour Leadership Award.

Notes on contributors

Hang Duong

Hang Duong is a PhD student in Political Science and International Relations at The University of Western Australia. Her research focuses on public sector human resource management and policy transfer.