This article compares and evaluates performance of two main current socialist economic-social models. One is Cuba’s central plan characterized by state large enterprises predominant over the market and private property, with mild market-oriented structural reforms that are ineffective in generating sustainable socioeconomic development. The other model is the successful Sino-Vietnamese “socialist market,” typified by small, medium, and some large private enterprises and the market, all predominant under a decentralized plan (a guideline rather than a central plan). In this the state regulates the economy and controls the largest enterprises. The article identifies the characteristics of the three countries, addresses potential barriers to comparison, and summarizes a history of the reforms and their five key economic policies in the three countries. It also assesses performance based on a selection of the twenty most relevant and comparable indicators, elaborates a composite average to rank the three countries, and discusses potential methodological issues. The conclusions summarize the results of the comparison, recommend reforms for Cuba based on successful Sino-Vietnamese policies, and outline the research agenda for the future. The article is an important contribution to the fields of comparative economics systems, socioeconomic development, methodology, and Latin American studies.

Vietnam’s initial response to Covid-19 was conspicuous for various reasons, including how its attempt at securitisation drew deeply from historical narratives, symbols, and traditions specific to the Vietnamese experience, as well as how the securitisation project was not simply top-down and state-driven but also featured ground-up participation where the public was mobilised to participate in and actively reiterate securitisation practices. This richly textured empirical case study of the workings of Vietnamese society and politics represents an invitation to explore key debates surrounding securitisation theory. Reflecting on the empirical material of the case, this paper builds on scholarship seeking to highlight the shortcomings of the Copenhagen School’s model of securitisation and from there further explore securitisation theory and its limits. It takes aim at how the audience and its agency is conceptualised in the theory and develops the notions of ‘historical resources’ and ‘activation architecture’ to more adequately explain the processes of securitisation.

This study examines the relationships between e-government service quality, perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty toward e-government services. Survey data were collected from 340 randomly selected e-government service users in Vietnam. The results reveal that (1) e-government service quality consists of five dimensions: ease of interaction, fulfillment, citizen care, security and privacy, and trustworthiness; (2) among the five dimensions of e-government service quality, only trustworthiness and fulfillment are significantly related to perceived value; however, trustworthiness has a stronger association with perceived value than does fulfillment; and (3) both perceived value and satisfaction are positively associated with loyalty. The results indicate that the e-government can create value for the citizens by improving service quality, which may help satisfy citizens’ needs and build their loyalty.

Natural resource extraction is an important livelihood strategy for poor rural households in developing and emerging countries. Despite the sharp decline in poverty in Vietnam, inequality still exists between the ethnic majority and minority. This paper aims to analyze the impact of natural resource extraction on ethnic inequality. We use panel data from Dak Lak in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition shows that ethnic differences in extraction are due to different group characteristics and different returns to these characteristics. Endogenous switching regressions find that extraction has heterogeneous effects on consumption across extracting and non-extracting households, and between majority and minority households. Treatment effects suggest that extraction sustains the consumption of extracting minority households because their consumption would decline if they stopped extracting. Our results indicate that it is important to improve the natural resource base and the ability of minorities to cope with shocks.

It is often asserted that Vietnam is balancing against China, or that it will or should. But does this assertion align with the empirical foreign policy behaviors of Vietnam? Indeed, Vietnam represents a case of a country that should be particularly cautious about China. To be sure it is a fraternal communist brother, but it is also economically entangled—with the down- and upsides of leverage—and geographically close with a history of disputes and outright war. This article argues that existing literature often neglects the ample information that China and Vietnam have about each. Years of engagement have enabled Vietnam and China to reach a modus vivendi that can settle disputes and permit a muted military response to Chinese risks. The lack of existential threat further dissuades Vietnamese leaders from moving closer to extra-regional powers such as the United States. That a key member of the potential balancing coalition against China doesn't engage in balancing behavior, calls into question US Indo-Pacific strategies premised on the assumption that countries will “soft align” or openly join with the US to contain China.

The aim of this study is to analyse the changing patterns in the transmission of COVID-19 in relation to changes in Vietnamese governmental policies, based on epidemiological data and policy actions in a large Vietnamese province, Bac Ninh, in 2021. Data on confirmed cases from January to December 2021 were collected, together with policy documents. There were three distinct periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bac Ninh province during 2021. During the first period, referred to as the ‘Zero-COVID’ period (01/04–07/04/2021), there was a low population vaccination rate, with less than 25% of the population receiving its first vaccine dose. Measures implemented during this period focused on domestic movement restrictions, mask mandates, and screening efforts to control the spread of the virus. The subsequent period, referred to as the ‘Transition’ period (07/05–10/22/2021), witnessed a significant increase in population vaccination coverage, with 80% of the population receiving their first vaccine dose. During this period, several days passed without any reported COVID-19 cases in the community. The local government implemented measures to manage domestic actions and reduce the time spent in quarantine, and encouraged home quarantining for the close contacts of cases with COVID-19. Finally, the ‘New-normal’ stage (10/23–12/31/2021), during which the population vaccination coverage with a second vaccine dose increased to 70%, and most of the mandates for the prevention and control of COVID-19 were reduced. In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of governmental policies in managing and controlling the transmission of COVID-19 and provides insights for developing realistic and context-specific strategies in similar settings.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and big data are transforming the credit market around the world. Algorithmic credit scoring (ACS) is increasingly used to assess borrowers’ creditworthiness, using technology to glean non-traditional data from smartphones and analyze them through machine-learning algorithms. These processes promise efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness compared with traditional credit scoring. However, this technology raises public concerns about opacity, unfair discrimination, and threats to individual privacy and autonomy. Many countries in Southeast Asia are introducing ACS in consumer finance markets, although—even with the significant concerns raised—there is an ongoing and concerning lag in oversight and regulation of the process. Regulation is vital to delivering big data and AI promises in the financial services market, while ensuring fairness and public interest. This article utilizes Vietnam, where the lending industry deploys ACS but in a situation of legal limbo, as a case-study to analyze the consequences of this technology. Vietnam is one of the foremost Southeast Asian countries in which ACS usage is spreading rapidly, and this provides an excellent opportunity to review the regulation, or lack thereof, and determine the implications that this may have for other countries that are currently introducing ACS in consumer finance markets. The article concludes with a proposal to regulate ACS in Vietnam based on international regulation and guidelines on ACS, data privacy, and AI to enable a transparent, accessible, and fair process.

This article examines the problem of flooding in colonial Tonkin through two interrelated lenses: the history of disasters as social and political phenomena, and the history of technology and the constraints that shape its use. With a gradient ten times steeper than the Mekong, the Red River (Sông Cái in Vietnamese) is notorious for its huge seasonal fluctuations and violent floods. For centuries, local rulers and cultivators constructed dikes to protect fields and settlements, though breaches and inundations were frequent. French administrators were convinced that they could improve the flooding situation with modern know-how. From the 1890s, colonial engineers carefully studied the river's behavior, examined a range of different schemes to control it, and debated the extent to which the straitjacketing of the river might gradually exacerbate flood risk. Despite their deep-seated misgivings about the problems caused by dikes, they were ultimately forced to work within the parameters of pre-colonial hydraulic works. The result was an intensification of existing dependencies and flood vulnerabilities, which finally came to a head under the combined pressures of extreme weather and war, and which ultimately played an important role in undermining colonial authority in the Red River delta.

The literature on civility navigates the gravitational pulls of binary camps: civility sceptics tend to emphasize how it operates as an instrument of power; civility optimists tend to emphasize its emancipatory potentials. While some scholarship has attempted to reconcile these perspectives by showing how civility can be both negative and positive, such theorization tends to describe this relation in terms of ambivalence. While these approaches rightly indicate that normative judgments about civility are largely a matter of perspective, the concept of twisted civility developed here focuses on the ways in which actors become trapped by the dynamic shifts of force embedded within civility. Comparisons across seemingly incommensurate examples suggest that such multidirectional dynamics are not culturally specific but rather more generalizable. Building our theoretical conception of twisted civility from a comparative approach based on research in Kuching and Saigon, and then using the concept to consider examples from the United States and Denmark, this article also reverses the direction of theorizing typically employed in scholarship on civility. Using postcolonial Southeast Asia as the source of theory rather than its afterthought, the method here uses anthropological comparison to generate theory and to problematize assumptions that universalize Euro-American trajectories of civility.

Gibbons are often difficult to observe in dense forest habitats using traditional ground-based methods. This makes it challenging to estimate group sizes and, in turn, population sizes. This has proven to be a key constraint on accurate monitoring of the last remaining population of the Critically Endangered cao vit gibbon Nomascus nasutus. However, new technologies are beginning to circumvent the problems associated with traditional methods. We hypothesized that, by using an unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with thermal and standard (RGB) cameras, we could obtain more accurate group size counts than by using ground-based observations, as fewer gibbons would be missed. We tested this during a population survey of the cao vit gibbon, finding that the thermal video footage revealed additional individuals that were not counted by ground-based surveyors. Statistically, there was strong evidence (93% probability) that UAV-derived counts were higher (by 41%) than concurrent ground-based counts. We recorded six primate groups of three species (cao vit gibbon, rhesus macaque Macaca mulatta and Assamese macaque Macaca assamensis), including 24 gibbons across four groups (c. 20% of the global population). The RGB video footage also revealed seven female gibbons, two of which were carrying infants, providing vital group composition data. These data have contributed directly to a more accurate population survey of the species than would have been possible using direct observation only. We anticipate more widespread use of UAVs in the study of gibbons and other threatened species, leading to a more robust evidence base for their conservation.