ABSTRACT
For many analysts and commentators, Vietnam in recent years has been a developmental ‘success’. The central task of this chapter is to explain the ways in which this success is the result of past history. In meeting this task I advance a series of arguments, many of which are perhaps rather surprising. On the one hand, they suggest that, given the historical background, Vietnam's recent success with a market economy and what is widely thought to be a strong state presence was to be expected. On the other, they should provoke reflection on how politics, and what is learnt from politics, may heavily influence developmental outcomes; in Vietnam, only when political issues, viewed in the wide, had been adequately resolved could economic logics operate.
