The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of the province in Vietnam in response to the reforms of Doi Moi. Doi Moi was not just implemented at the national level. The reforms addressed all levels, from the regions to the provinces. Before the French started to colonize Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam) and the VCP took power in Vietnam, the province played an important part in the daily life of the peasant. However, since Doi Moi and up to the present, as Vietnam continues to transform its rural economy, the role of the province is no longer clear.
There has been little research of provincial economies in Vietnam. This is due in part to the limited access accorded to researchers since 1975. In the last thirty years, research on the status of peasants in Southeast Asia focused on problems associated with the more undeveloped rural sectors in countries such as Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, as they transformed their farming enterprises into market export economies. In 1992, the Vietnamese government permitted some scholars to conduct research, but the ability to do that research remained somewhat restricted. In the last ten years, literature on Vietnamese provinces and peasants focused on government policies that encouraged increased production of agricultural goods including aquaculture, or marine farming, in the rural sector. This limited research has led to two problems: first, few studies have discussed the role of the province in the context of Doi Moi, and how the provinces have subsequently been transformed; and two, there is limited published material that emphasizes how these policies affected the role of the province and the impact on the lives of the peasants.
Little research has been done concerning Doi Moi's impact on the provinces and the uneven growth between the northern and southern regions. Focusing on the impact of Doi Moi at the provincial level, this study examines the displacement of Marxist institutions by Market institutions, and how this transformation resulted in the different levels of performance at the provincial level.
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