The politics of FDI reforms in Vietnam: institutional adaptation and local leadership

This thesis examines the politics of foreign direct investment (FDI) reforms in Vietnam between 1977 and 2015. Specifically, I discuss how local political actors pursued reforms that improved the country’s FDI institutions, using these insights to then explain trends in FDI inflows. Even in the face of many constraints, in fact, FDI reforms in Vietnam have been innovative, while the speed of reform is comparable to China’s between 1978 and 1997. Similar to China’s story, I find that most FDI reforms in Vietnam came from local initiatives, suggesting a less important role for the central government. Contrary to the Chinese case, however, the literature on FDI in Vietnam is relatively underdeveloped. Studying how Vietnam built its FDI institutions, thus, can fill the scholarly gap on the politics of FDI in Vietnam, while also developing upon the literature on FDI and institutional reforms. This paper, too, provides unique and insightful lessons on institutional reforms for other emerging economies as they adjust their developmental strategies amid the ongoing global pandemic