ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 portrayed legal reform in Vietnam as a series of borrowings, with the new overlaying the old. During the most recent cycle, party leaders have superimposed Western commercial laws on socialist legal doctrines and institutions. Yet, when this process began, party writings denounced bourgeois laws as the political tools of capitalism.1 This apparent contradiction between party ideals and legal imports raises questions about the role ideology plays in the selection and adoption of foreign law. The proliferation of multiple and sometimes contradictory ideals demands an analytical approach that can account for such diversity.
