ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that a key feature of the cultural context, at least in the cases of Vietnam and Brazil, is the background assumptions of modernization. It explains how a society believes the process of modernization will or should occur powerfully impacts the extent to which economic institutions are tailored to local conditions. The chapter shows that modernization is largely thought of as a practice of imitation in Brazil. Among the Vietnamese, most gave the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) credit for successfully decolonizing Vietnam and reuniting the country. The CPV also received high marks for its stewardship of economic development since the late 1980s. In the twentieth century, at the height of French colonialism and North Atlantic power, Vietnamese intellectuals, activists and the broader population faced two options: an imitative or an editing approach to modernization. The chapter summarizes that the military victories over the French and the United States were key anti-colonial moments militarily, politically, socially, and culturally.
