The Ecology of Authoritarianism in Việt Nam and the Activism It Shapes

In Việt Nam, activism can broadly be understood as comprising three main strands. One strand focuses on democratization, targeting political institutions and processes. A second strand is issue-based and centers on rights claims and accountability, and seeks policy change or justice for victims of rights violations. A third strand is also issue-specific but oriented toward social norms and everyday practices, raising public awareness and changing behavior.

Despite their seemingly different targets, tactics, and goals, these strands are interconnected and often complement one another in confronting authoritarianism. This article examines these interconnections from both conceptual and strategic perspectives.

Anti-authoritarianism Activism: a Conceptual Perspective 

Authoritarianism has multiple analytical dimensions. The most common understanding refers to the absence of periodic, free, and fair elections. In this sense, authoritarianism is associated with a specific regime type distinct from democracy.

A second way to understand authoritarianism is the weakness or absence of power-checking mechanisms within the governing system or political structure, such as media capture, judicial interference, or the concentration of executive authority. 

From a human rights perspective, many scholars, as well as activists, also equate authoritarianism with violations of individual rights, autonomy, and dignity. 

More recently, a new conception of authoritarianism has highlighted a feature that cuts across all prior definitions: accountability sabotage. Political actors sabotage accountability by withholding information and silencing voices (Glasius, 2018)—for example, by restricting public scrutiny, banning protests, or prosecuting political opposition. [1]

Taken together, these perspectives point to authoritarianism not as a single condition, but as a set of analytically distinct dimensions that may or may not coincide in practice. In some contexts, these dimensions can exist independently or remain partially insulated. For example, in young democracies, power-checking mechanisms may be weak or undermined under certain circumstances, yet elections still take place periodically and are generally open and fair. In established democracies, authoritarian practices may also emerge without regime change.

In Việt Nam, by contrast, authoritarianism manifests simultaneously as political structure, institutional practice, systematic rights violations, and accountability sabotage. Moreover, these dimensions reinforce one another, creating a spiraling ecology of authoritarianism: weak power checks enable repression; repression suppresses expectations of accountability, leading to normalized silence; and this silence, in turn, reinforces institutional corruption and the monopoly of power. 

This systemic configuration of authoritarianism helps explain why Việt Nam has seen robust activism in both pro-democracy and human rights spheres and why many activists traverse both fields. This differs from many countries where human rights and democracy activism are institutionally or professionally separate. Conceptually, patterns of activism tend to reflect the structure of the power they confront; activist configurations mirror authoritarian configurations.

Beyond how authoritarianism is manifested lies a related theoretical question: how does authoritarianism persist over time? This question brings us to the third strand of activism, focusing on social awareness and behavioral change.

Authoritarianism is certainly sustained through force, including the use of police power, the judiciary, and even extrajudicial actors—for example, organized civilian groups or hired individuals mobilized by authorities to intimidate or violently attack peaceful protesters. However, while coercion is necessary, it is also insufficient. 

Authoritarianism relies on certain psychological and cultural foundations, including the normalization, or even obsession, of rigid hierarchy, order, obedience, and conformity. These foundations make authoritarian practices appear normal, acceptable, or even desirable.

Such attitudes toward hierarchy, order, obedience, and conformity are often cultivated through everyday civil institutions, such as the family, schools, workplaces, and religious congregations. 

Historical experiences—in Việt Nam’s case, political conflict and instability coupled with economic deprivation—may also contribute to a strong preference for order and stability, even at the expense of democratic processes and individual liberties. 

These psychological and cultural conditions help explain why authoritarian practices can endure and reproduce themselves across different contexts, both social and political. 

Viewing culture as a mechanism of reproduction helps clarify why Việt Nam’s third strand of activism, which focuses on social awareness and behavioral change in areas such as gender relations, environmental protection, and racial and ethnic equality, is not disconnected from democracy and human rights activism. 

Activism that fosters beliefs and practices rooted in equality, justice, transparency, and accountability is vital to dismantling authoritarianism at its core.

Anti-authoritarianism Activism: a Strategic Perspective

1. Institutional change and justice for people affected by human rights violations

Activists aiming for democratic reform and respect for human rights tend to focus on actors with the power to implement structural change or the power to alleviate cases of human rights violations. Typical targets include political institutions, governing mechanisms, and influential political figures. Desired outcomes are often clearly defined, such as the introduction of free and fair elections, judicial independence, a free press, or accountability and justice for victims of human rights violations.

These two strands of activism often have the advantage of producing outcomes that are concrete, measurable, and widely recognizable. This makes it easier for activists to strategize, sustain motivation, assess progress, and communicate their goals to broader audiences, including supporters who do not share the same political or cultural context. 

Democratic institutions and norms also benefit from a relatively global vocabulary, which facilitates international advocacy and solidarity. At the same time, the chances of success tend to be moderate to low, while the risks for activists are high. Those who benefit from authoritarianism often have strong incentives to preserve the status quo, as well as the authority and resources to repress dissent.

Amongst these two strands, activism aiming for institutional reform tends to have a more discernible long-term impact than human rights casework. Political mechanisms and institutions, once established, tend to endure and to benefit a wide range of public interests. Human rights casework, by contrast, is often limited to immediate and individual-focused outcomes. 

Decisions to pardon or release imprisoned dissidents are frequently contingent on short-term political calculations and may occur in exchange for gains in other areas, such as international trade agreements or diplomatic support in foreign policy issues. Moreover, political actors are inherently transitory when compared with institutions or policies. As a result, efforts aimed at influencing particular officeholders in human rights casework tend to yield results only for as long as those actors remain in power.

In recent years, an increasing number of Vietnamese activists—particularly among the younger generation—have come to identify primarily as human rights activists, engaging in casework, policy advocacy, or both, while distancing themselves from the democratization agenda pursued by earlier generations. 

Several factors help explain this shift. Younger activists came of age during a period in which the Vietnamese Communist Party demonstrated relative success in delivering economic growth and political stability, especially when contrasted with rising instability in neighboring countries. 

They were also not subjected to the same forms of repression or trauma experienced by their parents or grandparents during the party’s consolidation of power, and therefore, they tend to hold fewer historical grievances toward communism as an ideology or toward the party as the sole governing authority. 

Furthermore, the growing visibility of social conflict and human rights challenges within Western democracies has weakened the appeal of democracy as a political model.

From a strategic perspective, however, this shift toward case-based human rights work and policy advocacy alone is unlikely to produce sustained change. In Việt Nam, institutional authoritarianism is inseparable from systematic restrictions on the freedoms of assembly, association, and expression. 

As a result, without parallel efforts aimed at institutional reform, human rights activism risks remaining fragmented, reversible, and dependent on the calculations of political actors rather than on enforceable guarantees.

2. Psychological-cultural change

Activism that targets the psychological and cultural foundations of authoritarianism focuses more on the social conditions that allow authoritarian practices to take root and persist. 

Rather than confronting elections, laws, or constitutions directly, this strand of activism engages with beliefs, norms, and everyday practices that normalize hierarchy, obedience, exclusion, and the silencing of dissent. 

Typical sites of intervention include education systems, media and cultural production, religious and community institutions, workplaces, and families, to transform social norms and public discourse.

The primary aim of psychological-cultural activism is the gradual change of what is considered legitimate, acceptable, or “normal” in relations of authority. Activists may seek to expand ideas of equality, pluralism, and critical inquiry; to challenge narratives that portray dissent as dangerous or unpatriotic; or to cultivate expectations of explanation, justification, and voice in everyday authority relationships. Over time, such efforts can weaken the cultural foundations that make accountability sabotage socially tolerable or politically defensible.

Psychological-cultural activism can have profound long-term effects. By reshaping expectations about authority and accountability, it can reduce popular tolerance for authoritarian practices. In this sense, cultural change can create the conditions under which institutional reforms become both possible and sustainable. 

Even when a country has democratized, this line of activism remains crucial, as democratic institutions require ongoing effort and vigilance to function effectively. Indeed, many young or newly established democracies demonstrate how political actors or parties, once having secured office through free and fair elections, may themselves engage in authoritarian practices.

However, the long-term effects are often diffuse, indirect, and difficult to measure. As a result, psychological-cultural activism is harder to strategize around, more challenging to evaluate, and more difficult to communicate to supporters seeking immediate results. 

At the same time, the risks to activists are often lower than in direct confrontations with authoritarian institutions, particularly when such work is framed in terms of education, culture, or community engagement rather than overt political opposition.

This strand of activism also carries its own limitations. Cultural transformation can be contested and vulnerable to backlash, and without parallel institutional change, it may fail to challenge or prevent the consolidation of authoritarian power. 

For this reason, activism targeting psychological and cultural foundations is often most effective when it complements, rather than replaces, efforts aimed at institutional authoritarianism. 

As an example, Việt Nam’s activism for gender equity illustrates both the promise and the challenges of activism that targets the psychological and cultural foundations of authoritarianism. 

By contesting hierarchical authority, rigid social roles, and norms that legitimize control and silencing, activists directly confront everyday beliefs and practices that contribute to the normalization of authoritarianism.

At the same time, when cultural struggles become narrowly framed around identity alone, they may risk polarizing sections of the public. Because resistance to authoritarianism ultimately depends on broad-based social change and, at key moments, collective unity to generate pressure for institutional reform, psychological-cultural activism is most effective when it builds inclusive coalitions rather than reinforcing social fragmentation.

Mutual Dependence

The conceptual lens of authoritarianism reveals strong interconnections between major strands of activism in contemporary Việt Nam. Recognizing these interconnections can help activists and international supporters make more deliberate strategic choices, communicate more clearly with one another, and avoid working at cross purposes. 

To transform Việt Nam effectively and sustainably, the three strands of activism must speak to one another. Changes in beliefs and values alone will not produce institutional transformation unless they are accompanied by efforts to mobilize grassroots power, articulate collective demands, and represent public interests before the state. 

While some activists may underestimate the importance of institutional change, political institutions, mechanisms, and policies play a decisive role in shaping whether people can live with security, justice, and dignity. At the same time, human rights casework can benefit from a clearer orientation toward systemic change, as individual cases can sometimes catalyze broader reforms in how legal and political systems address particular issues.

Conversely, activism aimed at institutional reform depends on people’s power to exert sustained pressure on political targets. Large-scale public demand does not guarantee political change, but it substantially increases the likelihood of success. Importantly, the public should not be treated merely as an instrument. 

Politicians, police officers, and members of the military are also shaped by the social norms and values of the environments in which they were raised. Good politics does not begin with institutions but with the values and integrity of the people who sustain them.