The Role of Emotion in Land Regulation: An Empirical Study of Online Advocacy in Authoritarian Asia

Abstract

Scholarly interest about online advocacy in authoritarian settings is rapidly growing. With one of Asia's most active social media, Vietnam offers a promising site to investigate how online advocates navigate around state censorship to influence regulatory decisionmaking. Much research about online advocacy focuses on rational discourse, and fails to ask why satire and ridicule can change regulatory outcomes when reasoned debate fails. This article considers two cases studies where online advocates changed regulatory outcomes in Vietnam. It investigates why the regulators were sensitive to moral censure in social media, and responded to appeals for solidarity, but were reluctant to engage in rational public deliberation. These findings reveal insights into how online advocacy can trigger emotional responses in officials that transform the regulatory environment. The article concludes that rather than constituting cognitive missteps, emotions are integral to government regulation in Vietnam.

Between authoritarian governance and urban citizenship: Tree-felling protests in Hanoi

“…Online public criticism can shame state officials by revealing moral or social failings that challenge their self-image (Jasper, 2015). Studies have also established that shame can change how officials respond to public protest, tipping the scales in favour of particular ideas and community groups (Gillespie, 2018; Vasavokul, 1995).…”

“…Phạm Quang Nghị acknowledged that officials must show good heart with the people and rule through ‘reason and sentiment’ ( có lý có tính ). His reference to ‘reason and sentiment’ invoked a long-standing regulatory practice whereby local governmental officials are expected to display empathy ( tình cảm ) by flexibly applying policies to avoid causing hardship to the people (Endres, 2014; Gillespie, 2018). This type of responsive regulation conflated pre-modern traditions of self-cultivation ( tự thân ), which grounded ethical governance on self-awareness and empathy (Kelley, 2006), with Soviet-influenced instrumental urban governance.…”

“…It is unlikely that online deliberation significantly influenced the decision to cancel the tree-felling programme. For this to happen, online advocates needed to convince city officials to incorporate public deliberation into policy making – a difficult task when officials believed that order from below is not only unreliable, but more importantly it carries the potential to galvanise public opposition to party rule (Interviews: Ngô Thu Hà, 2017; also see Gillespie, 2018). Officials consistently refused to engage protesters in the consequential deliberation required to communicate the tacit knowledge that underpins and explains public participation in decision making.…”

Coping with Precariousness: How Social Insurance Law Shapes Workers' Survival Strategies in Vietnam

“…Filing a lawsuit against a neighbor is seen as contradictory to such norms. In Vietnam, the country where empirical research for this article was conducted, interactions between and within state and society are still heavily shaped by customary norms, precepts, and informal practices (Endres 2014;Gillespie 2018;Koh 2007). This is in spite of a rather comprehensive legal reform and system developed since the 1990s, and the state's rhetoric of ruling society through the law.…”

Law and Precariousness in an Authoritarian State: The Case of Illegal House Construction in Vietnam

“…While state authority justifies demolition on the basis of the law, residents contend that the law should also take into account sentiment and compassion and embrace the precarious nature of their existence. This contention on the part of residents echoes the official Vietnamese approach of rule‐by‐sentiment, or ruling with “reason and sentiment,” which has been central to law and policy implementation and ordinary citizens’ expectations of state authorities’ and regulators’ performance at the local level (Gillespie , 116). The residents also evoked the state's socialist propaganda about its taking care of poor citizens and families, which was most recently popularized through a social campaign with the slogan “The nation joins hands with poor people; not leaving anyone behind” ( Cả nước chung tay vì người nghèo.…”