Brokering power in Vietnam’s northwest: the case of ethnic Tai cadres

Abstract

This thesis traces the relations between ethnic minority groups and the Vietnamese state through investigating the case of ethnic minority cadres. Focussing on high-level ethnic Tai cadres in Vietnam’s northwest, it explores the extent to which their performance as state cadres has been shaped by traditional Tai values, practices and forms of relatedness. It examines the role of these cadres as brokers between central state and local spheres and aims to shed light on the nature of the socialist state in ethnic minority dominated areas. Given the fact that Vietnam is a single-party-led country, commonly known for the strength of its state structures, the Vietnamese state in ethnic minority areas is often supposed to be powerful and assimilatory. By contrast, ethnic minority groups are commonly said to be colonised, weak and even voiceless in their relations with the socialist state of Vietnam. However, based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with the members of several Tai cadre networks in northwest Vietnam, my research challenges these common understandings by shedding light on the substantial roles of ethnic minority elites in socialist nation-building, contemporary state governance and the maintenance of ethnic identity and autonomy. Exploring a Tai-centric perspective on socialist nation-building in Vietnam, the thesis examines elite Tai contributions to the Vietnamese revolution, whose trajectory in the northwest is said to have been shaped by dynamics, and rivalries characteristic of the traditional Tai muang. By agentively employing traditional practices of relatedness in their role as state cadres, northwest Tai elites in the post-colonial era both facilitated and domesticated socialist programs such as collectivisation, while also securing representation for local network members in central government agencies in Hà Nội. The thesis demonstrates how contemporary governance in the northwest is enacted flexibly through a robust form of Tai entourage politics and it reveals how official development programs are transformed by Tai elites in conformity with vernacular idioms and practices.

By exploring the influence exerted by these local leaders through their vernacular practices and networks, my thesis argues that the Vietnamese state has still to rely greatly on local cadres and compromise on governance according to different local practices. The socialist state – especially in the northwest Tai region – is not a uniform state with a single form of authority. Instead, the state can be described as a politically aggregate entity comprised of heterogeneous forms of authority. The thesis sheds light on the way the Tai-central state relationship has been reconstituted by the very agents responsible for implementing central policy in Tai areas. By exploring the nature and degree of autonomy open to ethnic minority actors under a state known for its centralising efficacy and assimilatory bent, this thesis delivers substantial findings about the multi-ethnic identity of the Vietnamese state.

With regards to public policy, my thesis offers insights into the complex processes by which ethnic minorities substantively use governance and the bureaucratic system to drive, amend, modify or even formulate state policies to achieve their own goals. Thus, it is meaningful for the central government and policy makers in Vietnam to recognize vernacular ways of implementing state policies in ethnic minority and mountainous areas.