In 2019, a semblance of political stability prevailed in Vietnam even as the affairs of the Communist Party were beset by the uncertain health of its general secretary, corruption scandals, and the intensification of Beijing's encroachment on its continental shelf. Vietnam saw continued economic growth but an increasingly complex growth picture. Improvements in the quality of life masked the persistence of economic vulnerability and increasing inequality, while civil society was constrained by state repression. Ominously, Vietnam's ecological crisis intensified.
In 2018 Vietnam saw intensifying party discipline and state repression, rapid economic growth, spasms of dissent, and new questions about the direction of the country's social and political development. Amid deepening but perpetually fragile relations with Beijing, Hanoi furthered its strategic ties with the US, Japan, India, and other powers.
This article illuminates the value of the concept of the region in political ecology and environmental justice studies by presenting three arguments about the role of regions in environmental justice social movements engaged in climate change mitigation in California's San Joaquin Valley. First, regional planning agencies and environmental justice advocates are engaged in conflicts over not only the content of regional climate change plans, but the very definitions of region and the authority used to put these regional visions into action. Second, regional organizing provides environmental justice movements with new opportunities to address regional economic patterns and to negotiate with regional planning agencies, both of which influence local manifestations of environmental injustice. Third, regional strategies raise significant dilemmas for these movements as they try to sustain engagement across extensive spatial territories and engage with a broad set of policy and economic protagonists. Together, this analysis demonstrates that a dynamic approach to regions, regionalism, and regionalization can assist political ecology and environmental justice scholars in their common aim of understanding the co-production of social and environmental inequity and collective action to change it.Key Words: Environmental justice, regional political ecology, climate change mitigation, regional planning, rural community development
"The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam is a comprehensive resource exploring social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of Vietnam, one of contemporary Asia's most dynamic but least understood countries. Following an introduction that highlights major changes that have unfolded in Vietnam over the past three decades, the volume is organised into four thematic parts: Politics -- Economy -- Social life and institutions -- Cultures in motion. Part one address key aspects of Vietnam's politics, from the role of the Communist Party of Vietnam in shaping the country's institutional evolution to continuity and change in patterns of socio-political organisation, political expression, state repression, diplomatic relations, and human rights. Part two assesses the transformation of Vietnam's economy, addressing patterns of economic growth, investment and trade, the role of the state in the economy, and other economic aspects of social life. Parts three and four examine developments across a variety of social and cultural fields, through chapters on themes including welfare, inequality, social policy, urbanization, the environment and society, gender, ethnicity, the family, cuisine, art, mass media, and the politics of remembrance. Featuring 38 essays by leading Vietnam scholars from around the world, this book provides a cutting-edge analysis of Vietnam's transformation and changing engagement with the world. It is an invaluable interdisciplinary reference work of interest to students and academics of Southeast Asian Studies, as well as policymakers, analysts and anyone wishing to learn more about contemporary Vietnam"--
This article illuminates the value of the concept of the region in political ecology and environmental justice studies by presenting three arguments about the role of regions in environmental justice social movements engaged in climate change mitigation in California's San Joaquin Valley. First, regional planning agencies and environmental justice advocates are engaged in conflicts over not only the content of regional climate change plans, but the very definitions of region and the authority used to put these regional visions into action. Second, regional organizing provides environmental justice movements with new opportunities to address regional economic patterns and to negotiate with regional planning agencies, both of which influence local manifestations of environmental injustice. Third, regional strategies raise significant dilemmas for these movements as they try to sustain engagement across extensive spatial territories and engage with a broad set of policy and economic protagonists. Together, this analysis demonstrates that a dynamic approach to regions, regionalism, and regionalization can assist political ecology and environmental justice scholars in their common aim of understanding the co-production of social and environmental inequity and collective action to change it.Key Words: Environmental justice, regional political ecology, climate change mitigation, regional planning, rural community development
Vietnam has arrived at a momentous juncture in its social and political development. It is a country ripe with potential, but it creaks under the weight of an almost feudalistic political system.
