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

该合同符合2013年3月26日颁布的《2013年综合和进一步持续拨款法案》（P.L. 113-6）第五章第543节B部分。该项目与美国在民主化方面的利益直接相关，因为它涉及一党政权如何创建和控制立法机构，重点是越南。最近的学术研究认为，在专制统治下，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所带来的一个基本承诺问题，即如何阻止立法者利用其公共平台动员个人支持基础。这个项目为如何克服它提出了两个新颖的论点。它表明，议程控制和战略审查被用来防止在分歧问题上发生辩论，同时将辩论引向政权希望得到反馈的领域。这些观点在越南得到了检验，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越南国会（VNA）的发言和越南新闻媒体的采访。它还将依赖于从对越南官员和越通社代表的采访中收集的定性数据。知识价值：了解专制政权如何管理制度为其利益服务是民主化和政治稳定的关键问题。在过去的十年里，研究一直在考虑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为这一议程增添深度。首先，它暴露了一个以前未被承认的困境，这种困境阻碍了政权从威权制度中获得回报。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困扰。这个项目对于那些对专制的持久性更感兴趣的人来说也很重要。特别是，它将有助于解释一党制比其他类型的专制政权（如军事或个人主义政权）更持久的实证发现。这项研究表明，单一政党之所以强大，是因为它们善于通过平行的政党机构组织议程控制和审查。更广泛的影响：这个项目将有几个更广泛的影响，除了它的理论贡献。对于政策制定者来说，它解决了一场关于部分自由化政权稳定性的辩论。由于不确定部分政治改革的民主化效果，政策制定者争论是否与部分自由化政权接触。通过详细说明试图实行自由化的政权所面临的挑战，本项目强调了一些因素，这些因素表明，对于威权统治者来说，部分自由化可能不容易管理。简而言之，虽然自由化并不必然导致民主化，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最近的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，越南与美国的关系得到了加强。随着人们对该地区的兴趣，特别是对南中国海紧张局势的兴趣增加，越南已成为一个越来越重要的伙伴。该项目将对越南近期的政治和制度进行深入分析。它还将提供首个全面的越南语新闻文章和博客的数字档案和分析。

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.