Grassroots Democracy and Inequality Reduction in Rural Vietnam: The Case of Thái Bình in 1997 and Now.

The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) adopted grassroots democracy as a political tool to reduce inequality which was a causal factor prompting farmer protests in Thái Bình in 1997. At the international level, the nexus between democracy and inequality has attracted extensive scholarly research over the last two decades. By revisiting the case of Thái Bình, on the one hand, the article attempts to assess the impact of grassroots democracy after 15 years on inequality reduction thereat, and on the other, to contribute to the general discourse on the nexus between these two concepts. The article is organized in two major parts: the first being the literature review and theoretical framing, and the second, findings presentation. It concludes that grassroots democracy has contributed to inequality reduction in rural Vietnam, but is far more likely to meet the demand to avoid a challenge for the CPV again due to the inequality that remains. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]