The debate over the changing role and nature of the national state during the current period of volatile economic globalisation has increasingly centred on the extent to which the nation-state can control the forces of economic globalisation through domestic regulation and internationalising its activities while at the same time experiencing increasing challenges to its authority from the rise of various localised forms of state power. In general these debates have taken place within the context of states that are dominantly market economies and are highly integrated into the international system. In this paper we examine the issues of resistance to globalisation and the decomposition of the central state in the context of Vietnam. It is argued that here, as in the PRC (Peoples Republic of China), the development of elements of the market economy and integration into the global system are taking place under the auspices of a still centrally planned, single-party state, which continues to affirm its commitment to state control over the economy. It is proposed that although this has enabled a considerable measure of control to be exerted over the forces of economic globalisation, the processes of reform and related economic growth and participation in the global economy are undermining the authority of the central state. This is increasingly reducing the effectiveness of the central Vietnamese state as power shifts to more local structures.
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