In Vietnam’s charged political environment, where the Party maintains power
in part through legitimacy claimed and maintained by rhetorical means, translating
“civil society” has proved to be extremely difficult. This is in part due to the eclectic
manner in which the term has entered Vietnam over the years. Though difficult to
trace with any accuracy, I speculate that the term entered the Vietnamese language
through four or five separate routes over a period of 150 years or so, each with its own
political and political-economic ramifications.