The political system’s organizational structure and staff reduction process in Vietnam at present
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2057891119895129 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Author | Tuan Minh Nguyen |
| Subject Matter | Research articles |
Research article
The political system’s
organizational structure
and staff reduction process
in Vietnam at present
Tuan Minh Nguyen
Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, Vietnam
Abstract
The political system of Vietnam follows the former Soviet style, which includes the following
elements from central to local level: Party, State, Fatherland Front and mass organizations. This
type of organizational structure has shown increasing limitations in the current context of an open
economy and global integration. These need to be reformed and improved. While there are
enormous challenges in this reform process, there are encouraging changes. Therefore, it is
essential to renovate fundamental understanding on political system structure and induce the
strong political will of the whole political system, particularly within the ruling Communist Party of
Vietnam (CPV). Based on the theoretical model of political will developed by Post et al. (2010), this
study aims to test the assumption that the political system organizational restructuring and staff
reduction process will be successful with strong political will and public support. The findings show
that the on-going political system organizational process and staff reduction in Vietnam seems to
be in line with the assumption. There are impressive initial achievements. These include: (i)
elimination of three steering committees, seven directorates etc.; around 200 bureaus, depart-
ments etc., and 65 provincial departments; (ii) reduction of 50 directorate-level leading positions,
more than 300 bureau and department-level leading positions, about 200 provincial department-
level leading positions and about 10,000 division/office-level managers. Challenges are inertia
within the system, hesitation and conflicts of interest among decision makers. Therefore, strong
political will from the top level, common understanding and effort from all Party members and
support from people, as well as effective solutions in the coming years, are all required.
Keywords
political restructuring, staff reduction, Vietnam
Corresponding author:
Tuan Minh Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, 135 Nguyen Phong Sac, Hanoi, 10000 Vietnam.
Email: vminhduc@gmail.com
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2021, Vol. 6(1) 81–91
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891119895129
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