The modem Lao state has always been economically weak and dependent on outside support. Multilateral and bilateral aid is fundamental to its survival and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Foreign organisations have an important say over the future direction of Lao development, although they try to be discreet. In this sense the nationalist utopia of pure sovereignty is remote in Laos, and its vulnerability to outside forces occasionally produces knee-jerk reactions against ‘Foreign interference'. Unlike the RLG period, the states surrounding Laos today are committed to its stability and therefore to its survival. Stability has allowed the government, with the help of foreign aid, to engage in a vigorous programme of road building vital to the country's integration. This and other aid programmes have gradually strengthened the hold of the central government, while stability and then some prosperity in the 1990s has reinforced its legitimacy. Other influences flowing in from the outside challenge the hegemony of the LPRP while it remains to be seen whether the ethnic divisions will erupt in political confrontation. Here the activities of long distance ethnic nationalists abroad may prove crucial