Vietnam and China’s Civil Service Merit-based Policies: A Comparative Analysis from the Policy Transfer and Historical Institutionalism Approaches

Abstract

Meritocratic principles have been adopted in China and Vietnam as the main elements of their civil service reform. This study finds that there are considerable parallels in the merit-based policies of the two countries, despite the fact that Vietnam’s civil service legal reforms are almost five years behind China’s. Using policy transfer theory in conjunction with historical institutionalism, this study argues that the institutional, political, and cultural similarities and connections between the two countries are drivers of Vietnam’s pragmatic approach to policy transfer from China. This study also highlights the significance of policy transfer and historical institutionalism in comparative public policy study.

Keywords:

• Vietnam–China comparative study
• policy transfer
• historical institutionalism
• merit-based policies
• interviews
• document analysis

Acknowledgements

I thank Professor Mark Beeson and Associate Professor Jeannette Taylor, Political Science and International Relations, The University of Western Australia, whose discussions and comments contribute to the development of the research ideas and the completion of the manuscript. I also thank the Australian Endeavour Leadership Award for giving me the opportunity to do research about Vietnam’s public human resource management.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflictof interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Available at http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&p_isn=92648

2. Author’s translation from Vietnamese original documents.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Endeavour Leadership Award [6859_2018].