UC Riverside

The emerging field of “comparative political theory” has examined political thought from China, India, and the Islamic world, but has hitherto overlooked Vietnam. It turns out that thinkers in marginal civilizations like Vietnam were actually doing the kinds of creative and hybridizing theoretical moves we would today characterize as comparative political theory. This dissertation is the first book-length scholarly work to introduce Vietnamese political thought to the academic field of political theory. I examine the political thought of five Vietnamese thinkers: Phan Chu Trinh (1872-1926), Nguyen An Ninh (1900-1943), Pham Quynh (1892-1945), Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), and Nguyen Manh Tuong (1909-1997). Responding to French colonialism in Vietnam, they each proposed a different way of diagnosing problems facing the Vietnamese, a solution to those problems, and how Western ideas might play a role in the solution. Each chapter is devoted to one thinker and shows how his ideas intervene in, challenge, or enhance a debate in political theory. The dissertation covers a broad range of political theory debates (liberalism, democracy, national identity, civic and cosmopolitanism virtue, postcolonialism, revolution, and skepticism). However, a theme that cuts across all chapters is that they all conducted engaged comparative political theory, namely, they compare between Eastern and Western moral traditions to find the best ideas for the Vietnamese. This dissertation ultimately argues that their writings should be understood as a debate over how to construct a cosmopolitan national identity. From them, we gain five lessons that have the potential to be universalizable: (1) Misinterpretations of and overidealizing Others can actually be invigorating or instructive. (2) National shame over the inadequacies of your own people can actually be productive. (3) Assertive agreeability is a cosmopolitan virtue. (4) One understanding of revolution is the humanization of all who have been dehumanized. And lastly, (5) skepticism and love for diversity (by way of Montaigne) can be used to combat dogmatism and authoritarianism.