Community participation and local government capacity in Vietnam: Conditions for coproduction

Abstract

Summary With Public Administration Reform in Vietnam comes more local government responsibility for policy making. Building on the results of a multiple case study research on housing and infrastructure upgrading projects in four cities of Vietnam, it has been confirmed that the community participation and local government capacity in urban housing and infrastructure upgrading projects are positively related. The level of community participation in urban housing and infrastructure upgrading projects is influenced by local government capacity, and in turn, it has effects on the outcomes. There are some important aspects for the enhancement of the level of community participation. These are effective leadership, the financial resources aspect, and communication/information exchange. Moreover, based on the patterns of community participation in urban upgrading projects, it has been found that participation is strongly supported by government actors in these four cases, and a process of coproduction between the local government and the affected communities has taken place.

Welfare state and the social economy in compressed development: Self‐sufficiency organizations in South Korea

“…Of course, cooperation with the government does not always damage the identity of SEOs as autonomous not-for-profit organizations. There are studies which show that support from the government encourages SEOs to promote community activities and achieve their social missions (Kim & Moon, 2017;Lu & Zhao, 2019;Ngo et al, 2019). However, the recipients of a public assistance The Korean way of compressed development is not always generalizable.…”

Participatory governance and the capacity to engage: A systems lens

“…Without denying the influence of the political sphere in shaping the environment of public participation (McDonald & Smith, 2004), how participation is administered and the bureaucratic capacity for responsiveness also matter (Ngo et al., 2019; Yang & Callahan, 2007). According to Eckerd and Heidelberg (2020), local bureaucracies and officials within them are not simply passive recipients of external political pressures and policies.…”

“…Prior research on participation highlights the importance of local government capacity (Eckerd & Heidelberg, 2020; Ngo et al., 2019) and the agency of local officials (Nguyen et al., 2015; Peake & Forsyth, 2022; Yang & Callahan, 2007). Insofar as engaging citizens also involves bureaucratic responsiveness across the institution (Eckerd & Heidelberg, 2020), developing internal capacities and coordination of such responsiveness becomes important.…”

A comprehensive framework for the activation, management, and evaluation of Co-production in the public sector

“…Their ability to mobilize community members, however, depends on their tenure in office. Both McLennan (2018) and Ngo et al (2019) find out that leadership forms the solid backbone for other supportive aspects. Effective leadership from the regular provider's side brings a high level of width and depth of participation, improves equity, helps mobilize financial resources, facilitates information exchange/communication, and increases benefits and decreases costs of participation for both lay actors and professionals (Vanleene et al, 2017).…”