Doctoral Dissertation in Political Science: Deliberative Autocracy: How Single-Party Regimes Manage Liberalized Assemblies

该奖项符合SEC第五章B组的要求。该项目直接关系到美国在民主化方面的利益，因为它阐述了一党制如何创建和控制立法机构，重点是越南。最近的学者认为，在威权统治下，部分自由化的立法机构在稳定权力分享和促进增长方面具有重要意义。这项研究没有解决部分自由化带来的一个根本承诺问题，即立法者如何被阻止利用他们的公共平台来动员个人的支持基础。这个项目就如何克服它提出了两个新的论点。它表明，议程控制和战略审查被用来防止就引起分歧的问题进行辩论，同时将辩论引向政权希望得到反馈的领域。这些论点在越南受到了考验，越南的立法机构部分自由化，由一党控制。该项目将依靠最先进的自动文本分析技术来分析在越南国民议会(VNA)上发表的演讲和越南新闻媒体的采访。它还将依赖从与越南官员和越南人民军代表的访谈中收集的定性数据。知识价值：理解威权政权如何管理机构以服务于他们的利益，是民主化和政治稳定的一个关键问题。在过去的十年里，研究考虑了议会或选举在稳定威权统治方面的重要性。这项工作将在两个重要方面增加这一议程的深度。首先，它暴露了一个以前不为人知的两难境地，即阻止政权获得威权机构的回报。其次，通过其理论论证，它还提出了成功的政权如何保护自己免受这一问题的影响。这个项目对那些对威权耐久性感兴趣的人也很重要。特别是，它将有助于解释一党专政制度比其他类型的威权政权更持久的经验发现，例如军事或个人主义政权。这项研究表明，单一政党之所以强大，是因为它们擅长通过平行政党机构组织议程控制和审查。更广泛的影响：这个项目将在其理论贡献之外产生几个更广泛的影响。对于政策制定者来说，它解决了关于部分自由化政权的稳定性的辩论。由于不确定部分政治改革的民主化效果，政策制定者就是否接触部分自由化的政权展开了辩论。通过具体说明试图实现自由化的政权所面临的挑战，这个项目凸显了一些因素，表明对于威权的尺子来说，部分自由化可能并不容易管理。简而言之，虽然自由化不一定会导致民主化，但它可能会增加最终过渡的可能性。该项目的第二个更广泛的影响将是加深我们对越南近期政治历史和政治制度的理解，越南是美国国家安全利益的重要国家。自1995年与越南关系正常化和2001年签署双边贸易协定以来，越南和美国的关系得到了加强。随着人们对该地区的兴趣日益浓厚，尤其是对南中国海的紧张局势，越南已成为一个日益重要的合作伙伴。这个项目将通过提供对最近越南政治和制度的深入分析来做出贡献。它还将制作第一个全面的数字档案，并对越南语新闻文章和博客进行分析。

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013).The project is directly related to US interests in democratization as it addresses how single party regimes create and control legislatures, focusing on Vietnam. Recent scholarship has argued for the importance of partially-liberalized legislatures in stabilizing power sharing and generating growth under authoritarian rule. This research leaves unresolved a fundamental commitment problem posed by partial liberalization, which is how legislators are prevented from using their public platform to mobilize a personal base of support. This project presents two novel arguments for how it is overcome. It shows that agenda control and strategic vetting are used to prevent debate from occurring on divisive issues while channeling debate towards areas where the regime desires feedback. These arguments are tested in Vietnam, which features a partially-liberalized legislature controlled by a single party. The project will rely on state-of-the-art automated text analysis techniques to analyze speeches made on the floor of the Vietnam National Assembly (VNA) and interviews in the Vietnamese news media. It will also rely on qualitative data collected from interviews with Vietnamese officials and VNA delegates. Intellectual Merit: Understanding how authoritarian regimes can manage institutions to serve their interests is a critical issue in democratization and political stability. In the past decade, research has considered the importance of parliaments or elections in stabilizing authoritarian rule. This work will add depth to this agenda in two important ways. First, it exposes a previously unacknowledged dilemma that prevents regimes from reaping the rewards of authoritarian institutions. Second, through its theoretical argument, it also proposes how successful regimes protect themselves from this problem. This project will also be important to those interested in authoritarian durability more generally. In particular, it will help explain the empirical finding that single-party systems are more durable than other types of authoritarian regimes, such as military or personalistic regimes. This study suggests that single parties are strong because they are adept at organizing agenda control and vetting through parallel party institutions. Broader Impacts: This project will have several broader impacts outside of its theoretical contributions. For policy makers, it addresses a debate regarding the stability of partially-liberalized regimes. Policy makers debate whether or not to engage partially-liberalized regimes due to uncertainty about the democratizing effects of partial political reforms. By specifying the challenges facing regimes that attempt to liberalize, this project highlights factors suggesting that partial liberalization may not be easy to manage for authoritarian rulers. In short, while liberalization does not inevitably lead to democratization, it may nonetheless increase the likelihood of an eventual transition. The second broader impact of the project will be to deepen our understanding of the recent political history and political institutions of Vietnam, an important country to US national security interests. Since the normalization of relations with Vietnam in 1995 and the signing of the Bilateral Trade Agreement in 2001, the relationship between Vietnam and the US has strengthened. As interest in the region, particularly regarding tensions in the South China Sea, has grown, Vietnam has become an increasingly important partner. This project will contribute by providing in-depth analysis of recent Vietnamese politics and institutions. It will also produce the first comprehensive digital archive and analysis of Vietnamese-language news articles and blogs.