The relation between developmental state and civil society- experiences from some east asia nations and lessons for Vietnam

Overall, the reality of the relation between developmental state and civil society in South Korea and Japan show that by passing the barriers and pressure of developmental s[r]

THE RELATION BETWEEN DEVELOPMENTAL STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY – EXPERIENCES FROM SOME EAST ASIA NATIONS AND

LESSONS FOR VIETNAM

LL.M Dau Cong Hiep 585

Faculty of Constitutional and administrative law

Hanoi Law University

Abstract: Through the experience of some East Asia nations, it could be recognized

that in the time of developmental state, the relation between the government and civil society

is not really harmonized and sometimes grievous The developmental state is the telling example of the neglecting of the social demands to prioritize the economic development while the civil society organizations are the complements for resolving the social problems The conflict between civil society organizations and developmental state is expressed in different levels at nations Vietnam has not officially followed the developmental state model but it is a learnable subject in Vietnam Through the experiences of the East Asia nations which have many similar with Vietnam, the important lesson for Vietnam is that it needs to harmonize the relation between the state and civil society and balance the demand of economic development and ensure democracy

Key words: Civil Society, Developmental state

1 Some theoretical issues on the relation of developmental state and civil society

There have been many conflicts among the point views of Vietnamese scholars on the definition of developmental state, especially about defining developmental state as a model or

a type or a trend of state However, from any views, it is important to recognize the basic characteristics of developmental state to realize it accurately Among the six characteristics of developmental state which were described by Adrian Leftwich (as cited in Dinh Ngoc Thang, Nguyen Van Quan, 2017), it is an noticeable characteristic which related closely to the main

issue of this article: ―Normally, the developmental state is established in the context of a weak civil society The strong government controls civil society and neglects the opposed group The developmental economy will make civil society raises‖ This characteristic also not

reflects a harmonic relation between developmental state and civil society when the establishment of the developmental state could impede and blur the role of civil society To

my mind, this issue is interpreted from the theoretical aspects:

Naturally, the developmental state reflects the trend of augmenting state‘s intervention

to the society, especially in the economy and the market The level and the way of state‘s intervention of the developmental state could not be extended in comparison with the totalitarian state but it seems that the developmental state maintains its role and impact in such

585

dauconghiep@hlu.edu.vn

higher level than minimal state and welfare state In this case, the state‘s intervention is advocated that to stimulate the ability to promote and complement the private sector and to fix the market failure (Ngo Huy Duc, Nguyen Thi Thanh Dung, 2015) Additional, the developmental state also emphasizes the role of the elite group in society because they are the main force who plans and implements the state‘s intervention (V Fritz, A Rocha Menocal, 2006) In the reality, the wealth of some East Asia countries in the second half of the twentieth century consist in the contribution of the elite leaders, namely Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore or Park Chung Hee of South Korea Generally, under the administration of the developmental state all the components of society including the economy, was impacted by the state through its financial and fiscal policy in the different levels It could declare that the intervention of the developmental state to the society also based on the historical context, and there is the duration when state establishes a rough intervention to the society For instance, in the establishing era, the Singaporean state under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew implemented many policies that deeply intervened to the civil live, including the policy on rubbishing or

prohibiting chewing gum Hence, the foreign press called jeeringly his state a ―babysitter state‖ (Lee Kuan Yew, 2017) In South Korea, the state was described by Jones and Sakong

(Leroy P Johnes, Il Sakong, 1980) as a heavy interventionism which attempting to influence the microeconomic decisions of productive units either through direct government participation in public enterprise of through stimulating, forcing, or cajoling private

enterprises Overall, in the context of the motion of the developmental state, the phenomenon

that state intervenes (sometime roughly) to the society and economy is unavoidable It is a basic characteristic of the developmental state and be deemed as a factor that has made the achievements of this model

From the upper theory, to clarify the relation between the developmental state and civil society, it is needed to concern the nature of civil society The foundation of civil society

is very close to the right to associate It is a basic human right that is recognized in the Article

20 of the United Nation Declaration of Human Rights and is concreted in the Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Nguyen Dang Dung, Vu Cong Giao, La Khanh Tung, 2012) When considering the civil society by the right-based approach, it is needed to recognize that the establishing and operating of the civil society association started

from the ―natural characteristics and demands of humans‖ (La Khanh Tung, Nghiem Hoa,

Vu Cong Giao, 2015) Hence, the existence of civil society was permanently attached with the basic values of human rights, including freedom and equality It was followed by the trend of democratization and liberalization or minimizing the state‘s intervention To protect this view, the theorists of Neo-libertarianism have exposed the arguments to show that when the state intervenes deeply to the society, the liberal rights of human could be violated For instance,

Hayek wrote: ―if our economic activities are controlled, we have to report our plan and purpose to do anything But reporting still not enough, we need to be accepted by the government So all of our live is controlled‖ (F A Hayek, 2012) So it lead to the demand of

a state which have less intervention, be transparent and be righteous like what Bastiat has

described as ―a government which is easy to accept, not expensive and compact‖ (Claude

Federic Bastiat, 2015) However, the theory of developmental state exhorts state to expand both the range and the level of its intervention by many different ways to regulate the social and economic association‘s work in accordance with its developmental strategy Hence, it could be proved naturally and logically that in the process of establishing developmental state, instead of the increasing of leading role of state, civil society is under the risk of controlling

In the other words, ―elite politics and the exclusion of civil society are thus an inherent part

of developmental narrative‖ (Emmaniel Teitelbaum, 2011) To add more reason from the

perspective of economics, Ziya Onis (1991) argued that the developmental is inconsistent with the vision of a pluralistic form of democracy, in which a multitude of small-scale interest groups enjoy broadly equal and unrestricted access to the state Beside this, it‘s could be realized that the civil society not belong to the group which is concerned highly by the state Normally, the developmental states tend to be intimate with the economic associations, for example the chaebols in South Korea and SMEs in Taiwan; while civil society organization work with a broaden purpose, sometime be opposed with the enterprise, for example the labor unions So that we could recognize that the state‘s attitude could lean on which side when it has been interest conflict between civil society and the main economic group

To summarize, it could be realized theoretically that the developmental state is not an intimate of civil society Civil society includes many diverse interests which could overlap with or oppose to the role of state The trend of state which concentrates in promoting economy seems to neglect these interests to seek the development purpose This situation reflects two different trends, one emphasizes holistically interest of economy, and one emphasizes individually freedom in the diversity and difference So, it is needed to establish a framework for the developmental state to be more imitate to the civil society in demand of both economy development and human rights

2 The reality of the relation of developmental state and civil society in some countries

Japan is a telling country where developmental state has achieved many economic developments in the second half of the twentieth century Beside this, civil society in Japan with a long history, from the Meiji Tenno reform to Peace Constitution 1946 up to now have had a steady position with an open and democratic legal frame work (Nguyen Van Quan, 2015) But in the relation between the developmental state with many characteristic of a Weber‘s form of bureaucratic system, civil society in Japan have to face many trouble to balance the state (Francis Fukuyama, 2015) As Makido Noda (as cited in Hirata Keiko,

2002) wrote: ―Japan didn‘t have a civil society until recently And our civil society remains weak.‖ Thus, in reality, the situation of civil society in Japan also reflects the general rule

which has been pointed out in the upper part of this article on the attitude of the developmental state toward civil society Nguyen Van Quan (2015) also exposes the number that within 90.000 nonprofit associations in Japan, there are only 223 association has special

tax goodwill and argues that: ―state‘s policies and laws are fogy in comparison with the reality of association live‖ The other argument for the oppressing of state to civil society in

Japan based on Confucianism Confucianism emphasize on the group much highly than the

individual The concept individualism (kojin-shugi) in Japanese also has a negative mean and

be likely selfishness (Hirata Keiko, 2002) Hence, Japanese people have less autonomy and state more oppresses civil society

However, the reality in Japan shows that the economic development as a consequence

of developmental state also influences in a reverse way which stimulates the generating of

civil society Rovert Pekkanen (2004) argued: ―civil society is an unrecognized element of the developmental state story – both in its success and its decline A quiescent civil society sector (the organized non-state, nonprofit sector) characterized the developmental state and was as central to the bureaucracy‘s political insulation as the distance from politicians Moreover, the very success of the developmental state brought Japan to a new level of affluence and led

to the increasing prominence of civil society organizations.‖ A landmark which is usually

mentioned when talking about the development of civil society on Japan is the earthquake

1995 in Kobe when the voluntary organization worked actively and made significance in the Japan society This event was deemed as am untying in Japanese cognition and it followed by the increase of the number of civil society organizations The relation of the civil society organizations with political parties are also be strengthened Robert Pekkanen (2004) showed that in March 30, 2004, a committee of LDP holds a conference with some NGOs to run their election campaign Overall, it is a model of the compromise between civil society and state in the context of a developing society The reality shows that the role and position of civil society in Japan has many changes but in the process to shape the next steps of development

Generally, the civil society in Japan has reflected the changing of state models after a democratic constitution in 1946 Tsujinaka (2009) divided the historical periods of civil society in Japan into 4 periods with their characteristics Firstly, from 1945 to 1957, the civil society organizations had developed diversely, especially the labor unions Secondly, from

1958 to 1975, while the enterprises had increased, the civil society organizations were narrowed and were merged Thirdly, from 1976 to 1996, the governmental spending were restricted, the view on civil society had gradually changed Although the civil society organizations were controlled by the economic interest groups but their work areas were more diverse Fourthly, from 1997 up to now, the nonprofit organizations have increased significantly, especially after the 1998 Law on the nonprofit organizations

According to this, the period when the developmental state in Japan had existed firmly coincides with the period when the civil society was most restricted After that, it seems that state has accepted and adapted to compete with the civil society organizations However, the consequence of the period of the domination of developmental state in Japan is that the civil society organizations could not challenge the power of state even they are now having a better position Tom Ginsburg (2001) pointed out that in Japan the groups have no right to sue the

government The administrative law does not allow the non-governmental organizations to sue the government on behalf of the interests of any group He also gave the detail that the rate of government‘s losing a lawsuit is very low (under 10%) Although the role and position of civil society organizations in Japan have transformed positively, but it is unambiguously that the heritage of the period of developmental state has also weakened them However, the modern public governance with the increase of the participation of private sector is inevitable Thus, the civil society organizations in Japan are now improving their position to balance the role of state

Developmental state and civil society in South Korea also have some specific points Professor Choe Hyondok (2009) interpreted the constraining of civil society in the ear

1961-1987 through three Park Chung Hee government‘s rules, namely ―anti-communism‖,

―monarchism‖ and ―economic development‖ The policy of anti-communism lets the South Korea society exists in a monistic context where any person who against state‘s policy could be condemned as a ―communist‖ and be deprived all civil and political rights Hence, the state had

an absolute advantage in the comparison with civil society Choe Hyondok (2009) also showed that some pseudo-NGOs were established by the state Beside this, the aim to develop the economy also allowed the gap between bourgeois employers and their employees, constrained the affiliation amongst the employees in the liberal labor unions Since the Constitution 1987 of South Korea, the democracy of South Korea has started and the aim to democratize the society

is until now the highest mission of civil society in South Korea In a statistics, in 2013 there were 50.000 organizations that fight for democracy in South Korea and the majority of them belonged to the employees (Le Van Cuong, 2015) The strong democratization along with the enhancing of civil society in South Korea is now impacting the big enterprises which are called

chaebols The chaebols are considered one of the most important sign of Park Chung Hee‘s

government and also a high motivation which made the miracle development of South Korea economy, from the average per capita income at 100$ in 1960 to 12.000$ in the last few years (Kim Byung-kook, Ezra F Vogel, 2015) Chaebols could be deemed as the production of South

Korea developmental state, as it is declared by professor_ Cho Mu-hyun (2005): ―South Korea can be defined as a 'developmental-state,' where the government actively intervened and worked closely with companies In some ways, it was necessary, because the market was imperfect And the chaebols were born.‖ However, under the pressure of the democratization

and the enhancing of civil society, the chaebols have faced many crises The chaebols themselves are now self-regulating and changing Professor Lee Jong-Wha (2017) said, they are being tamed to acclimate the new context This thing shows that civil society in South Korea plays a role in the progress of liberalization and democratization

However, while the liberalization in Japan was happen in peace, the civil society organizations in South Korea had to face with a bleeding fight It is proved by the number of the protesters who were death for liberalization in South Korea Briefly, the liberalization could be marked by these following landmarks (John Minns, 2001)

+ In 1970, the first independent labor union was established after many years and

continuously fight for the interest of the employees in context that it was be considered illegal and disturbed by the government

+ In 1979, the female workers in the YH commercial company established their own labor union and commenced a sitting demonstration The demonstration was oppressed and a woman was killed but the multitude was awakened

+ After the death of Park Chung Hee in 1979 and the coup d‘état in 1980, the movements of workers, students, scholars who against the totalitarianism were exploded and also were oppressed Approximately 200 persons were killed in May 18th 1980 After that, all independent labor unions was demolished, 500 reporters and 80 professors were fired

+ In 198, under the pressure of the federating of the civil society organizations with the name is National Movement for a Democratic Constitution, the totalitarianism in South Korea was shaken A new Constitution was born and the president was directly voted

+ After that, the restrain of state gradually decreased and the balance between the government and civil society started to reverse In comparison with the year 1987, the number

of labor union in 1989 was increased 3 times

To interpret the achievement of civil society organizations on reclaiming the role from the state, Sunhyuk (2004) realized that this achievement consisted in the diversity of the organization The federating diversely and coherently of the organizations which belonged to workers, students, scholars and religions generated a vast motivation which let the government to compromise and accept the liberalization The National Movement for a Democratic Constitution (Kungmin Undong Ponbu) was the telling example because it was the federating of 25 main organizations consists of many careers and regions in Korea with the support from millions of people

Overall, the reality of the relation between developmental state and civil society in South Korea and Japan show that by passing the barriers and pressure of developmental state which constrain the civil society, the liberalization and democratization of the civil society has made by the consequence of economy development We share a conclusion of professor_ Kangkook Lee (2017) to end this part of our article on the reality of the relation between

developmental state and civil society here: ―However, as history shows, the developmental state itself changes over time as the economy grows and especially the power relationship between the government and business changes Along with this change, the government is likely to lose its strong autonomy from the business and powerful business demands more liberalization to limit the role of the state further.‖

3 The relation between developmental state and civil society in Vietnam

In Vietnam, developmental state is now being the most concerned and shared issue This trend could be considered a new start with many prospects for the next era of development in Vietnam However, through the analysis on the developmental state, both on theoretical and practical aspects in some countries where developmental state has been

experimented for many decades, it is not difficult to realize how the prospect of the relation between developmental state and civil society in Vietnam could be shaped in the next few years In this context, we need to have some basic perspectives and actions

Firstly, in Vietnam, the existence of many kinds of the associations is followed by the confusion on many researches The consequence is that in Vietnam, there are many ―socio-political associations‖ which have been established under the control of state The important point is that only this kind of associations belongs to the political system (Hanoi Law University, 2018) Naturally, these associations are very different with the associations which were established independently called ―civil society‖ (Vu Cong Giao, Le Thi Thuy Huong, 2016) The definitions are not much important but could create some confuses on statistics For example, according to a statistic of Dang Ngoc Dinh (2008), in Vietnam one person averagely is a member of 2.33 associations This index is largely higher than China (0.39) and Singapore (0.86) Beside this, the rate of the persons who belong to at least one association is 73.5, which is a high rate in the world However, this statistic based on the data of Vietnamese persons who also belong involuntarily to the socio-political associations namely Hochiminh Communist Youth Union, Vietnam Women Union and Vietnam Labor Union According to Nguyen Thanh Tuan (2007), the number of persons who were considered the members of these associations is 31 million However, the number of civil society organizations which are independent with the state is not collected statistically because of the absence of law‘s regulations on the identification of this kind of association The live of associations in Vietnam has improved steadily but they also depend on state and the existence

of the independent association is not truly unambiguous This phenomenon is also described practically by the following indices:

(1) On the development of associations, in 1986, there were only 30 associations in entire country The corresponding numbers of the year 1990, 2002 and 2015 are 100, 240 and 498

(2) The number of the unique associations which implement the missions of State and Party is huge In the central level, there are 28 associations with 647 officials and in the local level, there are 8736 associations with 67710 officials

(3) There are 30% of the associations have the head office provided by the state The live of civil society associations in Vietnam is diverse and young but has many drawbacks According to Le Quang Binh, Nguyen Thi Thu Nam, Pham Thanh Tra and Pham Quynh Huong (2015), there are many problems Firstly, the capacity of the civil society organizations is low and it lacks of the role of the organization on education and research Secondly, the control of state is tough, especially on the right to access to information and right to publish of the civil society organizations Thirdly, the space for work of the civil society organizations is narrow and the affiliating with the enterprises and international organizations is limited In the context that civil society organizations in Vietnam just have a low position, they have to acclimate with the legal environment and struggle for their own

values The civil society organizations may not choose to oppose the state but could play the role to support state in the first phase before steadily struggling

On the other hand, it is needed to recognize the situation of Vietnam‘s economy and its impact to the live of the association and the democracy In Vietnam, the state have not yet applied the model of developmental state but the innovating and integrating have played a prominent role to change positively Vietnam‘s economy (Nguyen The Binh, 2015) The achievements on the growth of Vietnam could not be called ―miracle‖ as the developmental states in East Asia namely Japan and South Korea but they have also contributed to improve the society in Vietnam Concerning the relation between the economic growth and the live of associations, it is not only that the growth of economy supports the increase of civil society organizations but also they play some certain roles to enhance the economy According to Dinh Cong Tuan (2017), these roles are:

- The civil society organizations enhance the participation of citizens into the economy Therefore, it creates the democratic and open legal environmental and augments the government‘s integrity and transparency Based on this, the corruption could be impeded

- The civil society organizations contribute to provide the social services which the normal enterprises do not tend to invest because of low profit This contribution could harmonize the market and complement the channel for enterprises to indirectly invest

- The civil society organizations spread out the intelligent values of human therefore they could support state and enterprises to build the knowledge-based economy toward sustainable development

In Vietnam, the civil society organizations know to cooperate and acclimate with the legal conditions and the economy It is an important step to maintain and improve the existence of associations Nowadays, the civil society organizations have more improvements

on the form of their operations such as capitalizing on the social networks, cooperating with the international NGOs and advertising themselves by social media Based on the core values

of civil society organizations such as the voluntariness, transparency and independency, they would steadily exist and develop

After concerning these perspectives, Vietnam has to perceive and act in demand of promoting the role of civil society organizations

- Firstly, Vietnam needs to harmonize the relation between developmental state and civil society As described, the developmental state could not be intimate with civil society but it could not be denied that the trend of liberalization and democratization of civil society

is irreplaceable The future of cooperating between state and civil society is totally potential

A telling example of this issue could be seen clearly in Japan To courage people to reduce the amount of salt in daily meals under 7 grams, government has sponsored many private organizations who work on nutrition These organizations have encouraged and taught their members to control the amount of salt in daily meals by many modern ways (Yukio Mamori,

2009) So, in the starting of developmental state in Vietnam, the state needs to not neglect or tear away the civil society and has to ―embed‖ to the society, to respect and accept the role of the civil society (Peter Evans, 1995) It is important to be ready for the future and not let the civil society organizations have to fight for democracy and make political crisis as the things which happened in South Korea Dinh Tuan Minh and Pham The Anh (2016) also

recommended: ―state do not to only be intimate with the enterprise sector but need to embed into civil society‖, ―to attract civil society into the common development of nation and to harmonize the conflicts between the organizations in this progress.‖

- Secondly, Vietnam needs to recognize the caducity of the developmental state and the trend of liberalization and democratization of civil society is irreplaceable The Asia‘s economic crisis in 1997 and the globalization along with the common problems of human on environment, exhausting sources and climate change are now changing the state‘s cognition

on its role The strong intervention of state which happened is now unfashionable This thing also shows the caducity of the developmental state The developmental state itself has specific historical values and just be useful for society‘s demand in a unique duration before changing

to acclimate the new context and situation of society while democracy, rule of law and liberty

is inevitable The catalyst of the democratization and liberalization is no more than economic development Even in the East Asia countries which have a long history of Confucianism culture like Japan and South Korea, the economic development also erase the ruin of tradition

to pave the way for the trend of humanity, human right respect with their basic values are liberty and equality The enhancing of civil society despite the barriers from both culture and state has proved this trend Hence, in the future, especially after the implementing of the Constitution 2013, Vietnam state need to have the precise policies and mechanism to improve democracy, protect the right to associate This is the only way to catch the trend of democratization which is followed by the economic development

Conclusion

The relation between the developmental state and civil society is dialectic The developmental state restrains civil society to prioritize the economic aim but the growth is a factor that enhances the improving of civil society The liberalization trend is expressed by the actions and movements of the civil society organizations and also is the reflection of the demand on an open and free society It is followed by the trend that state has to change the model of developmental state to reallocate the developmental achievements justly by social welfare The experiences of some East Asia nations show that the liberalizations may happens

in other ways but their consequence all come from the struggling of the civil society organizations Based on this perception, Vietnam needs to harmonize the relation between state and civil society and reallocate the achievement in a precise way

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