A Case Study of Vietnam’s Hybrid Development Model: State Adaptation, Market Reform, and Strategic Autonomy since Doi Moi

Abstract

This dissertation explains how Vietnam has achieved rapid economic growth, deep global integration, and continued political stability without moving toward liberal democracy since Doi Moi in 1986. It argues that Vietnam has developed a hybrid development model under the Communist Party of Vietnam that combines one-party political control, selective market reform, state ownership in strategic sectors, foreign investment, informal economic flexibility, and strategic openness. The study asks three main questions: how institutional path dependence shaped Vietnam’s reform choices, how external actors and great-power rivalry influenced those choices, and how the Party reconciled socialist ideology with market reform and global integration without political liberalization. Using a mixed-methods case-study design, the dissertation combines historical institutional analysis, process tracing, document analysis, elite interviews at Fulbright University Vietnam, field observations, and limited quantitative evidence on foreign direct investment, income growth, and structural change. It finds that Vietnam is neither a simple copy of China, nor a delayed version of the East Asian Tigers, nor a failed democratic transition. Instead, Vietnam has built a system in which market reform, export-led growth, and international integration work alongside Party control, performance legitimacy, selective institutional adaptation, and strategic hedging. The dissertation qualifies modernization theory rather than rejecting it. Vietnam shows that modernization can be delayed, managed, and sequenced under one-party rule, especially before a large and politically independent middle class has fully formed. But the model is not settled. Vietnam has come far since Doi Moi, moving from poverty and isolation into global integration and lower-middle-income development. It still has far to go. The next test will come as Vietnam becomes wealthier, more urban, more educated, and more demanding. The Party-state will then face pressure to improve legal predictability, cleaner government, financial oversight, land governance, education, and accountability while preserving political control and strategic autonomy. The dissertation also argues that Vietnam’s foreign policy is part of the same model: bamboo diplomacy, strategic hedging, and the Four No’s help preserve strategic autonomy while expanding external options.

Disciplines

Economics | International Relations | Political Science

Subject Area

International relations; Political science; Public policy; Economics; Asian studies

Department

International Relations (INR)

First Advisor

Buckman, Kirk A.

Second Advisor

Giannakos, Symeon A.

Third Advisor

Huynh, Dung T.

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

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