Vietnam's Development Strategies

Taking a developmental approach, this book critically reviews Vietnam's reform process and shows how the country’s reform agenda is still dominated by a ‘developmental orthodoxy’ inspired by a post-Washington consensus. The author argues that a wider debate is needed in order to give national policymakers the full spectrum of alternatives to support well-informed policy decisions. The book indicates that two issues central to any analysis of the Vietnamese development reform process are substantially underdeveloped in the current scientific literature: the experience of the East Asian developmental state and the question of socialism. Presenting a way of thinking about Vietnam that goes beyond orthodoxy, the book explores various paradigms through which the Vietnamese economy can be analyzed. This offers a valuable addition to the literature and will appeal to practitioners and academics in Southeast Asian studies, economics, and development.