CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Wyndham, Caitlin McInherny |
|---|---|
| Title | Terms of Engagement: How social movements influence government policy in a one-party state |
| Summary | The background to this project dates back to 2001 when I first arrived in Vietnam and started working on a project to encourage the formation of ‘self-help’ groups of people with disabilities. Around the same time, groups of people living with HIV also began to form and embryonic movements appeared. More than ten years later it was clear that these movements had achieved significant influence in the form of new laws and changed cultural understandings of their communities, and that the environment for civil society and citizen voice had changed significantly. I embarked on this research to better understand the import of these movements, and in particular how, as highly marginalized citizens, they had managed to get the one-party state to listen. Rather than focussing on dissident and opposition movements, I was far more interested in how regular citizens were interacting with the state, and how and why the state was responding. This dissertation considers the question of how social movements in a one-party state can achieve policy outcomes through in depth case studies of three movements: the movement of people living with HIV; the movement of people with disabilities; and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual movement. Social movement theory has been developed based largely on empirical studies of protest movements in ‘Western’ democratic countries. The findings of this project indicate that this is a problem. I find that theory is currently unable to explain these non-protest movements in a non-democratic environment. The study critiques a number of key theoretical concepts; for example finding that framing is not simply a tool for achieving other policy goals, or a condition explaining policy success, but is an integral part of the movements’ desired outcome. In addition, findings contribute to theory building around the key role of public opinion and the media for movement outcomes, despite the non-democratic context. The findings suggest that theory will be improved if researchers consider a wider range of movements and a variety of contentious tactics, in a variety of political environments. The study also by necessity considers the question of why elites in Vietnam have been so responsive to these movements. In a democratic environment, political response to movements is assumed to be electoral; elected representatives are responsive if and when they fear losing power. In a non-democratic environment, the question of elite response cannot be so easily glossed over. The research finds that while utilitarian authority maintenance mechanisms are relevant; far more important are characteristics of political & administrative culture, the morals and ideas of individual decision makers, and entrenched systems of power and resources. These insights are also likely relevant in democratic environments and offer exciting opportunities for future research. Through consideration of the dynamic interactions between citizens, elite decision makers, media and international agents, the study goes beyond consideration of social movement outcomes to offer insight into how the one-party state is changing and learning as part of the fascinating live experiment in governance that is currently being conducted in Vietnam. An epilogue considers how some of the key trends emerging from the research are contributing to both continuity and change in Vietnam’s reform process and what this might mean for relationships between citizens and the state into the future. |
| Supervisor | Zentai Violetta |
| Department | School of Public Policy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/wyndham_caitlin.pdf |
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