2 - The Ward and Neighbourhood State–Society Relations

Summary

Like many other countries, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a system of local administration. In socialist countries, where every need of the people is supposed to be taken care of by the state, the local administration system also functions as the channels through which the state dishes out benefits, and both state and society carry out tasks (such as penalties, punishments, compliance, and applications) in public administration. In the interests of efficiency and effectiveness, a large local administration bureaucracy that comprises administrative bodies at different levels is set up. In Vietnam, under the national government there are the province/central city, district, and commune/ward levels of local administration.

This chapter analyses wards (phuong), the lowest level of government and administration in Vietnam's cities and smaller urban areas. Ward officials carry out state policies and enforce the law on a daily basis. This chapter examines how the ward local administration is organized to implement policy, and how this machinery of local administration is appraised with reference to its effectiveness in achieving state objectives. In particular, this chapter will contribute to the argument that the ward local administration, set up for effective mobilization of people to follow the leadership of the state and the party, is also a daily tool of mediation that allows society to negotiate state policies and laws. This chapter will demonstrate conditions in the organization and operations of the ward state machinery that makes this possible.

I will first analyse the structure and organization of the ward state machinery as well as the informal but state-directed network of neighbourhood party and residents' organizations beneath the ward state machinery. The second section examines the dilemma surrounding the debate on whether wards should continue to exist, in particular, highlighting how policy-makers, administrators, and academics in Vietnam have been appraising the ward and the obstacles that wards have been facing since their beginning.