ABSTRACT
This article takes issue with conventional “rule of law” explanations for economic development that emphasize the regulatory role of the state. It draws on a detailed empirical study about entrepreneurs to show that commercial regulation in Vietnam is polycentric and that state, hybrid and non-state actors variously compete and collaborate with each other to order the regulatory space. What we conventionally recognize as the “rule of law” — state-based laws and legal institutions — does not so much control behaviour directly, as co-ordinate among a number of other, often non-state regulatory systems. The article concludes with the counter-intuitive proposition that the state can increase its regulatory reach over the market by recognizing and supporting socially beneficial self-regulatory practices. Rather than striving for particular regulatory settings, such as protecting property rights and contractual enforcement, the state needs to promote institutions that can flexibly respond to transitional conditions.
