"Unearthing Politics: Environment and Contestation in Post-Socialist Vietnam is the best single study of domestic Vietnamese politics during the post-reform era. Through an exhaustive examination of the contest over Chinese bauxite mining in the Central Highlands, this book sheds a bright light on the emergence in late communist Vietnam of new flashpoints for political conflict, novel modes of political organization and innovative forms of political struggle. Unearthing Politics will be a required reading for scholars of environmental conflict, late-communist political culture and contemporary Vietnamese studies."

Peter Zinoman, author of Vietnamese Colonial Republican: The Political Vision of Vu Trong Phung, History, UC Berkeley

"The bauxite mining controversy in 2009 opened up an unprecedented era of contentious politics and heralded the rise of a civil society in Vietnam that continues to challenge the domination of the communist regime today. As the first detailed account of this event, Morris-Jung offers a compelling analysis of how politics in one of the few remaining communist states has evolved in the last decade."

Tuong Vu, author of Vietnam's Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology, Political Science, University of Oregon

"Morris-Jung unpacks Vietnam's political economic transition through a critical moment: that of public opposition to the idea and practice of bauxite mining by Chinese companies in post-reform Vietnam. The book's echoes of and divergences from socio-environmental politics elsewhere in the expanding world of Chinese investment, development, and extraction, make this an extremely important read."

Nancy Lee Peluso, co-editor of New Frontiers of Land Control, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley

This book examines an important socio-political challenge to the ruling party regime in Vietnam that emerged within a controversy over bauxite mining in the late 2000s. Highlighting a confluence of trends disrupting the nation's "encrusted politics," this book opens up a space for in-depth study of the most sensitive issues, bravest activists, and most off limit struggles within the Vietnamese party-state today.

Jason Morris-Jung is Associate Faculty at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS).

Auteur

Jason Morris-Jung is Associate Faculty at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), Singapore.

Texte du rabat

This book examines an important socio-political challenge to the ruling party regime in Vietnam. Vietnam has been the subject of substantial controversy and challenge to the Vietnamese party regime since market reform in the 1980s, especially since the controversy over bauxite mining in the late 2000. Using the environmental dimensions of this problem to highlight a confluence of trends disrupting the nation's "encrusted politics", this book open up a space for the in-depth study of the most sensitive issues, bravest activists, and most off limit struggles with the party-state in Vietnam today.

Contenu

Chapter 1. Introduction. - Chapter 2. Political Histories of Vietnamese Bauxite. - Chapter 3. Power and Limits of Embedded Advocacy: Emergence of a Public Debate. - Chapter 4. The Reemergence of the Intellectuals: The Petition of the 135. - Chapter 5. Responsive and Repressive: The Two Arms of the Party-State. - Chapter 6. Conclusion: What Comes Next