by

Remarkably, in the view of some observers, a poor and relatively weak government in Laos survives as a one-party state, even as it transforms the country’s political economy in response to declining communist fortunes in the early 1990s and the onslaught of economic globalization. How has the Lao government managed the socialist transformation and capitalist incorporation, while maintaining some semblance of external sovereignty and internal legitimacy? Through the broad lens of political economy and sociology, my research addresses this question, in exploring three areas of Lao state capacity: (1) political structure, (2) public administration, and (3) fiscal management. I rely on several sources: a set of observations during my time on research assignment in Laos (May 2004-April 2005); an examination of governance-related, donor-funded development projects; an exhaustive survey of government laws, regulations, and documents since the reform period; and a review of literature on the political economy of development, market transition, and globalization. To assess different points of view on contemporary Laos, I conducted open-ended interview