Book Talk: Vietnam — Navigating a Rapidly Changing Economy, Society, and Political Order

The Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia invites you to a virtual book talk with contributors from the recently published Vietnam: Navigating a Rapidly Changing Economy, Society, and Political Order (Harvard University Asia Center, 2023). This new edited volume explores how Vietnam’s governance shapes its politics, economy, social development, and relations with the outside world. To learn more about the book, you can access a complimentary copy of the introduction here.  

This book talk is cosponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center. 

Speakers include: 

• Sarah Bales, Hanoi University of Public Health
• Bill Hayton, Associate Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House
• Börje Ljunggren, a Senior Associate Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs
• Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Professor of History
• Xuan Thanh Nguyen, Vietnam Program Fellow, Rajawali Institute Foundation for Asia
• Dwight Perkins, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, at Harvard University

Register here

About the Book 

Vietnam remains a Leninist party-state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam that has reconciled the supposedly irreconcilable: a one-party system and a market-based economy linked to global value chains. For the Party stability is crucial and, recently, increasing economic openness has been combined with growing political control and repression. This book, undertaken by scholars from Vietnam, North America, and Europe, focuses on how the country’s governance shapes its politics, economy, social development, and relations with the outside world, as well as on the reforms required if Vietnam is to become a sustainable and modern high-income nation in the coming decades.