Can Donors Encourage Authoritarian States to Go Green? Evidence From Vietnamese‒German Development Cooperation

Abstract

Recent debates about “green” authoritarianism have focused on the institutional features of state-led coercive environmentalism. However, the role of various non-state actors in the greening of authoritarian states has remained largely unexplored. Carrying out a case study of Vietnamese‒German development cooperation in the environmental and climate spheres, this article examines the interaction between Vietnamese state institutions and international donors. The article argues that donors play an important role in greening the state policy agenda in Vietnam by funding environmental projects and facilitating knowledge sharing. Nonetheless, donors have very limited freedom to push the political process beyond policymaking and foster meaningful policy implementation. Development practitioners in Vietnam often find themselves caught in a policymaking vacuum, where policymaking is a never-ending process and implementation remains limited. These findings raise broader questions about the effectiveness of climate-related development finance for environmental governance under authoritarian regimes.