BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT OF CIVIL SOCIETY SPACE IN VIETNAM LE QUANG BINH, NGUYEN THI THU NAM, PHAM QUYNH PHUONG, PHAM THANH TRA REFERENCE BOOK HONG DUC PUBLISHING HOUSE BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT OF CIVIL SOCIETY SPACE IN VIETNAM LE QUANG BINH, NGUYEN THI THU NAM, PHAM QUYNH PHUONG, PHAM THANH TRA REFERENCE BOOK PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD In a society based on the rule of law and market economy, the three spheres of the state, market, and civil society are often seen as indispensable pillars of the society’s operation. In the context of Vietnam, the process of building a socialist rule of law-based state and socialist-oriented market economy has been progressively researched alongside its actual development. However, there has been little in-depth research on civil society due to many objective reasons. Besides, Vietnamese civil society organisations themselves are in formative stages, still remain relatively spontaneous, and cause much debate. There have been some studies by domestic and foreign authors that attempt to describe the activities, classify and structure civil society in Vietnam. This research report may be seen as a continuation of those studies, with new approaches and research methods. A new academic feature here is the concept of “civil society space”. “Benchmarking”, or measurement of this space by quantitative indicators, is conducted by a process developed and tested rather strictly. This approach is quite innovative, highly effective, and sufficient to provide a new and thorough look on Vietnamese civil society as a multi-dimensional “space” of inside and outside operations and interactions, which is quantitatively measured and qualitatively analysed in an explicit way. As the authors confirm, this has been the first study in Vietnam that “uses quantitative methods to measure the perception of civil society space directly from the people who create and use this space” (Section 5: Conclusions). Regarding the methodology, the researchers have built an analytical framework with 3 components and 33 indicators to measure the “dimensions” of civil society space, also with a measurement component of civil society’s impacts on the values it pursues. These factors have allowed a detailed and comprehensive research into different “dimensions” of the civil society space, and particularly, they are not too complicated to follow, with logic and convincing evidence. Although many points in this research report may be debated (for example in relation to the sample size, representativeness, or some biases in judgement), it can be affirmed that this study on the “hot” topic of present-day Vietnamese civil society has been conducted “systematically”, with rigorous methods and in a captivating and persuasive way. The research report helps readers sense a quite realistic picture of the scale and scope of civil society space in Vietnam today - a multi-dimensional space whose enormous potentials have not yet been fully explored. At the same time, the report points out the challenges, obstacles, potentials and prospects for expanding this space in the near future. The data, opinions, and comments are those of the authors. But readers who are researchers or policy makers will consult and discuss them further. The publishers strongly support publishing this study. 5 ABBREVIATION APF ASEAN People’s Forum ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations CEDAW The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation CSI Civil Society Index CSO Civil Society Organization CSO Pride Civil Society Organizations Pride CSR Corporate Social Responsibility DFID The Department for International Development of the United Kingdom EU European Union EVN Vietnam Electricity FTA Free Trade Agreement HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus IA Irish Aid IDS Institute for Development Studies INGO International Non-governmental Organization iSEE Institute For Studies of Society, Economy and Environment LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender MTTQ Father Land Front NGO Non-governmental Organization PTTH Secondary School SOGI Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity TPP Trans - Pacific Partnership U&I Unregistered and Independent Organization UBND People’s Committee UPR Universal Periodic Review USAID United States Agency for International Development WTO World Trade Organization XHDS Civil Society 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher’s foreword ........................................................................................................... 3 4.2.1. The component on funda mental Abbreviation ............................................................................................................................................ 4 social and cultural values .................. 33 Preface ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6 4.2.2. Civil society capacity ...................................... 34 Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................. 7 4.2.3. The component of State Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 8 regulation of civil society ................... 35 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 10 4.2.4. The component of civil society impacts ............................................................ 36 1. Civil society and civil society space .................................. 15 4.2.5. The model of components 1.1. Concepts of civil society .............................................................. 15 reflecting civil society space ...... 37 1.2. Civil society space ....................................................................................... 17 4.3. The results of civil society space measurement .................................................................................................. 38 2. Methods to measure civil society space ............. 19 4.3.1. Civil society space .................................................. 38 2.1. Concepts ............................................................................................................................... 19 4.3.2. Correlations among civil 2.3. Development of measurement society space components ............. 39 indicators ........................................................................................................................... 21 4.4. The results of assigning the gauging 2.4. Piloting the indicators ..................................................................... 23 scale to each component and civil society assessment of each 3. Data collection and analysis ............................................................... 24 indicator ......................................................................................................................... 40 3.1. Collecting quantitative data ........................................... 24 4.4.1. Socio-cultural values 3.2. Analysing quantitative data ........................................... 24 (2.94 points) ........................................................................ 41 3.2.1. Factor analysis in developing 4.4.2. Capacity of civil society indicators to measure civil (2.91 points) ........................................................................ 53 society space ............................................................................. 24 4.4.3 State regulation 3.2.2. Analysing measured values (2.24 points) ........................................................................ 83 of components of civil society 4.4.4. Civil society impacts space in the master sample ............. 26 (2.92 points) ........................................................................ 97 3.3. Collecting qualitative information ................. 26 4.5. The extent of expansion 3.4. Analysing qualitative data .................................................. 27 of civil society space in Vietnam ..................... 114 3.5. Research ethics .................................................................................................. 27 5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 119 3.6. Discussion on research methods ........................ 28 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 124 4. Research findings ............................................................................................................ 29 Appendix 1: Selected international tools 4.1. Characteristics of civil society for civil society measurement respondents to the survey ................................................... 29 and assessment ............................................................. 124 4.2. The findings of factor analysis Appendix 2: Characteristics of 30 respondents in developing scales to measure to questionnaires and in-depth components of civil society space ................... 33 interviews ..................................................................................... 130 References ..............................................................................................................................................