... on the position the province had had in the Soviet administrative hierarchy. The higher the province’s position before 1991, the greater the intensity of business violence one is likely to observe there in post-communist times, because the Soviet collapse left a more gaping power vacuum and lack of working...

... presidency. Only 15% of the 1993 business elite still retained their position by 2001, after the 1998 devaluation of the currency. Those who took their place were younger, less metropolitan, better educated and more likely to have a background in government, including many who had enjoyed ministerial status...

... the central focus of the paper. Looking at Vietnam’s second city and business centre, Ho Chi Minh City, the paper argues that the main problem with identifying politicians as reformers is that it gives a distorted picture of what reform is actually about, particularly its underlying logic. In the author’s...