Ownership, use and wrongdoings in land management in Vietnam since renovation

Abstract

Vietnam's renovation has generated fundamental development in national economy, rural development policy, especially in agricultural land ownership, management and use. However, in the process of land policy reform under the context of industrialization and urbanization, we have also witnessed various forms of wrongdoings in land management in many locales that have resulted to reaction from the state and society. Drawing upon various sources, this study starts with an analysis of three kinds of land rights in Vietnam since 1988 in comparison with the two levels of land ownership in periods of pre-1988 history, then describes, analyzes and explains wrongdoings in agricultural land management and reaction from the state and society to these since the 1980s so as to answer the question as to how agricultural land has become the issue of debate, dispute and petition in rural Vietnam.

The study argues that for the state and various entities of the society in Vietnam, agricultural land use rights are important and meaningful; therefore, if there is no proper policy for managing these use rights, they will be at a high risk of being corrupted, mismanaged by local cadres and therefore created reactions from the state and society.