The politicization of civil service recruitment and promotion in Vietnam

Hang Duong

Public Administration & Development, 2021, vol. 41, issue 2, 51-62

Abstract: Literature about the politicization of civil service recruitment and promotion generally treats loyalty and competence as being mutually exclusive and considers politicization to have negative consequences. While these studies focus mainly on multi‐party democratic regimes, studies in other political settings like Vietnam show that the conventional wisdom is controversial. Under the sole control of the communist party, Vietnam's civil service recruitment and promotion are highly politicized, and yet it has become more merit‐based. By analyzing this distinctive trajectory, this research shows that the conventional understandings of politicization need to be reconceptualized to include the combination of political and merit‐based criteria and the intervention of the political party. Additionally, while problems with politicization are inevitable, potentially positive aspects of politicization in authoritarian regimes, including stronger political leadership, better responsive competency, and improving efficient governance, should not be overlooked. This research also contributes to studies about the effects of politicization on development in developmental states.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1910

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:41:y:2021:i:2:p:51-62

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Public Administration & Development from Blackwell Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().