Legitimation of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party: Socialism, Chintanakan Mai (New Thinking) and Reform

ABSTRACT

To date, scholars of authoritarianism have paid much attention to the use of democratic institutions in dictatorships to mitigate threats from both internal and external ruling elites, to co-opt and divide opposition and to solve commitment problems among the ruling elite. However, there have been no in-depth studies of legitimacy in an authoritarian regime. In communist states, opposition and dissent are addressed not through co-optation but exclusion. By contrast, communist parties attach great value for their survival to obtaining legitimacy from the masses. This article argues that the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) has endeavoured to acquire legitimacy since the foundation of the regime through a dialogical configuration of economic reform and socialist ideology. Economic reform and ideological legitimisation always go together, interacting with each other: economic reform requires ideological modification, and ideology defines the framework of reform. In Laos, this paradoxical configuration is necessary for the LPRP to maintain legitimacy while concurrently pursuing an ideal of socialism and reality of economic reform. In making this argument, this article reassesses the nature and significance of chintanakan mai (new thinking), which was not a formal reform policy, as often assumed, but a temporary slogan for promoting economic reforms.

KEYWORDS:

• Legitimacy
• authoritarianism
• socialism
• Lao People’s Revolutionary Party
• chintanakan mai (new thinking)

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Over recent years an increasing number of studies on Vietnam have emerged, including Malesky and Schuler (2008, 2009, 2010), Malesky, Schuler, and Anh Tran (2012), Abrami, Malesky, and Zheng (2013) and Malesky (2014). Works on China include Truex (2014) and Dimitrov (2013b).

2. See, for example, Ljunggren (1993), Otani and Pham (1996), Than and Tan (1997), Suzuki (2002, 2003), Butler-Diaz (1997), Bourdet (2000), Amakawa and Yamada (2005), Rigg (2005), Rehbein (2007), and Iinuma (2009). Ljunggren (1993) and Otani and Pham (1996) indicate that economic reform began in 1979. However, both consider 1986 as a watershed because the Lao government began to implement the New Economic Mechanism (NEM) seriously at that time. Generally, it is thought that NEM was first introduced in 1986 although Otani and Pham (1996) say 1985, but do not offer substantial evidence for this dating. Rehbein (2007) argues that institutional transition in 1986 was caused not only by the introduction of a market-oriented economy but also by deepening globalisation. Based on this observation, he argues that we cannot understand present-day Laos without considering the influence of globalisation.

3. According to Suzuki (2002, 259), for example, NEM included: (i) relaxing controls on prices with the exception of utilities; (ii) agricultural liberalisation and abolition of the state monopoly on rice distribution; (iii) reform of state-owned enterprises; (iv) tax reform; (v) trade liberalisation; (vi) unification of the foreign exchange rate; (vii) separation of the central bank and commercial banks; (viii) development of the legal system; and (ix) introduction of foreign direct investment.

4. While Stuart-Fox (2008, 57) accurately identifies the meaning of chintanakan mai, he does not explain how it came about or its historical significance. He writes: “chintanakan mai was never intended, as was ‘glasnost’ (‘openness’) in the Soviet Union, to lead to greater political freedom. It has thus been more of a political slogan than a liberal policy.”

5. The Plenum of the Central Committee is held twice a year to discuss basic issues and plans of the country.

6. This section refers to statements by Kaysone at the Third Plenum of the Second Central Committee (Kaysone 1987), the First Session of the Supreme People’s Assembly First Legislature of June 1976 (Kaysone 1976), the Fourth Plenum of the Second Central Committee convened in February 1977 (Kaysone 1977a), and a meeting between the Supreme People’s Assembly and the Council of Government in February 1977 (Kaysone 1977b).

7. The quote reproduces uncertainties that are noted in the FBIS report of the meeting.

8. At the Fifth Congress of the Party in 1991, the title of Party Secretary was changed to Chairman, and then, back to Secretary-General at the Eight Congress of the Party in 2006.