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9. Community-Driven Regulation, Social Cohesion, and Landfill Opposition in Vietnam
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
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9 Community-Driven Regulation, Social Cohesion, and Landfill Opposition in Vietnam Nguyen Quang Tuan and Virginia Maclaren INTRODUCTION The success of economic development in Vietnam since the adoption of doi moi in 1986 has not been without cost, notably the increasing environmental degradation of the country’s air, land, and water resources (MONRE, 2006) . In recognition of this problem, the Vietnamese government has passed a number of environmental regulations and has attempted to increase the capacity of environmental agencies . However, the regulatory regime continues to be weak . At times, legal regulations (such as Environmental Impact Assessment regulations ) simply play a ritual role rather than find application in mitigating pollution successfully (Doberstein, 2003; O’Rourke, 2004) . Lack of enforcement is a significant problem for a wide variety of environmental regulations (Dang & Nguyen, 2006) . In light of these weaknesses, vocal opposition by communities has emerged as an important method for pressuring polluting facilities to reduce their pollution levels (Phuong & Mol, 2004; O’Rourke, 2004) . Recently, several researchers have examined the effectiveness of community pressure on polluting firms . Their studies reveal some promising strategies for responding to the environmental impacts of industrialisation and urbanisation in the presence of a lax environmental regulatory regime (O’Rourke, 2004; Phuong & Mol, 2004) . Some refer to this type of pressure as “community-driven regulation” (CDR) (O’Rourke, 2004) while others use the term “informal regulation” (Hettige et al ., 1996; Phuong & Mol, 2001) . Although the evidence is limited to date, the outcome of community pressure appears to vary from case to case, depending on the social and economic characteristics of the affected communities, including social cohesion and external linkages (O’Rourke, 2004) . Facility_final2207.indd 183 22/07/2011 5:32 PM 184 | Facility Siting in the Asia-Pacific An important gap in the literature on CDR and informal regulation is that there has been no research on the issue of community activism against noxious public facilities . The main focus of previous research has been on community actions against industrial pollution . For a number of reasons, community actions against noxious public facilities might be different from those against industrial firms in Vietnam . First, unlike some public facilities such as landfills, industrial firms usually bring substantial economic development opportunities to local communities . In contrast, noxious public facilities like landfills are more likely to bring stigmatisation than improve employment prospects . The media also tends to play a different role in public versus private facility conflicts . As noted by O’Rourke (2004), media in Vietnam often side with local residents in their fight against polluting private firms . In contrast, residents who oppose publicly owned facilities, such as landfills or even stateowned enterprises, may receive less support from the media because the media is strictly controlled by the government . This chapter examines the extent and effectiveness of community-driven regulation in dealing with landfill problems in Vietnam . It has several objectives , including characterisations of (1) the nature and effectiveness of CDR around landfills in Vietnam, (2) the factors that play a role in community activism against landfills, and (3) the influence of CDR and social cohesion on decision makers at higher levels of government and on regulators . In discussing the effectiveness of communities in dealing with local industrial pollution, O’Rourke (2004) focused mainly on the ability of a community to reduce pollution and close a facility . In this study, we expand on the idea of an effective community in more detail, defining effectiveness relative to outcomes for the host communities rather than for society in general . Probably the most effective result of community opposition to a polluting facility that a community can achieve is to close the facility . The second-most effective is to allow the facility to continue its operation, but the facility must be well managed and produce zero or an “acceptable” level of pollution for local communities . If the facility is not closed or the pollution is not stopped or reduced, the ability of a community to force the government to provide more compensation is also a measure of community effectiveness . Compensation could take the form of direct monetary compensation or in-kind compensation, such as better local infrastructure or new employment opportunities . Finally, forcing government into dialogue is another measure of effectiveness, even though it may not necessarily result in any action by the government . Facility_final2207.indd 184 22/07/2011 5:32 PM [54.172.162.78] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:27 GMT) Community-Driven Regulation, Social Cohesion, and Landfill Opposition in Vietnam | 185 COMMUNITY-DRIVEN REGULATION According...