The Structure And Chronology Of Institutional Change:the Evolution Of Vietnam’s Household Registration System In Contemporary Vietuam

Since its establishment,the Vietnamese household registration system has not only nested and interpenetrated with social resources and welfare systems related to public provision,but also interacted with and influenced national economic,political and administrative institutional reforms.Initially established with the objective of re-establishing social order,the Vietnamese household registration system has evolved into a major instrument of social control,resource allocation and benefit redistribution through the path dependence of governance philosophy,policy environment,economic structure and national development strategy choices at the institutional and structural levels.Based on a historical institutionalist approach,this study analyses the evolution of Vietnam’s household registration system from the theory of institutional change and divides it into four stages:formation,consolidation,weakening and opening,according to the evolution of its functions.From the combination and balance of temporal and structural narratives,the evolution of the Vietnamese household registration system is abstracted into a causal chain of key events,placing other influences such as institutional,economic,political and social perceptions together in the chain to understand the relative position of the household registration system,and exploring the dual influence of power structures and temporal order on the change of the Vietnamese household registration system.After the establishment of an independent regime in the north,state power acquired an exclusive status and the household registration system was arranged as a direct reflection of the state’s will,with the household registration system becoming a policy tool to maintain social stability and restore the country’s economic construction.The institutional environment has become increasingly liberal since the opening up of the country,with the recovery of market and social forces and the increasing diversity of subjects in the system.In order to meet the requirements of Vietnam’s socialist modernisation,the household registration system has been driven by multiple logical constraints and interests in the direction of fairness,equality and openness.The evolution of the Vietnamese household registration system is a manifestation of the linkages and confrontations between different forces in the process of institutional change,as well as a reflection of the process of social structuring at the economic,political and cultural levels in Vietnam.The analysis of the evolution of Vietnam’s household registration system within the framework of the historical institutionalist theory of institutional change not only responds to the frontiers of Western neo-institutionalist theory,but also focuses on the practical issues and reform paths in the evolution of Vietnam’s household registration system,and has reference value for the future reform direction of China’s household registration system.