one can credibly say that democracy and politics in contemporary Vietnam go hand in hand Such a claim, however, is likely to be incredulous to a reader of international press coverage about the country today. Even in scholarly literature, the two words "democracy" and vietnam are rarely paired. Nevertheless, democracy as a concept, aspiration and form of goverment has figured in the country's political evolution from its struggles aginst French colonial rule in the first half of the twentieth century until debates today about its future.
Broadly speaking, there have been two contentious conceptions of democracy in Vietnam ; democracy as a type of society versus democracy as type of government.
the next section of this chapter explains both and then focuses on the second called procedural democracy, because it is far more controversial in the country's current political debates, The Vietnamese government was founded on and has espoused procedural democratic principles, but it falls wel short of practicing them. Increasingly in recent years.Vietnamese critics and opponents of the government have pushed to make procedural democracy a reality.The chances of that happening is then analyzed. I conclude that Vietnam's political system is not likely to change soon to a procedural democracy.
Elements of democracy The idea of democracy resonates far and wide in Vietnam and has done so for decades. Rarely do Vietnamese regard democracy as foreign. Indeed the concept enjoys a very positive image. One veteran of Vietnam's Communist Party and of the war against the United States and to reunite the nation wrote, "democracy and freedom have permeated the bones and blood of Vietnamese people" (Nguyen Ho, 1994, p. 29) Today and in the recent past, villagers' petitions and letters objecting to particular officials or programs frequently implore authorities to be democratic and to uphold people's democratic rights. And officials regularly portray the country's political system as democratic and the government as "of the people, by the people, and for the people. 426