Vietnam as a Counter-Developmental State: The Paradox of the Development of Information Technology

In the course of the global transformation from industrial to post-industrial
economies during the twentieth century, the roles of computer technologies have
changed. Whereas these technologies began as tools for industrial engineering, as
enabling mechanisms to redefine industrial production processes, they eventually
became a significant industry in themselves: hence the post-industrial economy has
also become known as the information economy. Concurrently, the roles of the state
in relation to economic development have been challenged by new conditions
shaped by the continuously evolving characteristics of information technology.
Against this backdrop, the thesis explores some different technologies in the
IT industry to examine how the post-industrial characteristics of these technologies
interplay with technology-upgrading approaches conducted by various actors in
Vietnam. The thesis also examines how these technology-upgrading approaches
relate to the Vietnamese state’s economic developmentalism. The thesis examines
four sectors of Vietnam’s IT industry: outsourcing, cloud computing, the app
economy and online games. The thesis finds that technology-upgrading approaches
for each of these four sectors were conducted in different ways. Moreover, the roles
of the Vietnamese state also differed in relation to each of these four technologyupgrading
approaches. Based on these findings, the thesis presents three arguments.
Firstly, the relationships between technology-upgrading approaches and the state in
Vietnam are different from what the literature suggests. Secondly, technology is not
simply an instrument of the state to be used for economic development; technology
is also a structure shaping the role of the state in economic development. Finally
there can be more than one role for the state in the IT industry, and these competing
multiple roles can actually jeopardise state economic developmentalism. The thesis
characterises this phenomenon as the ‘counter-developmental state’.