Digital transformation is not just a technological upgrade; it is a comprehensive process that reconfigures authority, redistributes resources, and reshapes visibility both within the state and across society. While many governments have pursued digital transformation, the outcomes have varied significantly, with some achieving rapid progress and others stalling due to institutional inertia and policy incoherence. This article uses Vietnam as a case study to explore how a highly centralized political regime can initiate and sustain extensive digital reform. Through a political economy lens, it argues that the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has strategically positioned digital transformation as integral to socialist modernization and as a pillar of performance-based legitimacy. Three interrelated causal factors underpin this elite consensus: the CPV orchestrated bureaucratic coalitions and facilitated cooperation between state-owned and private sector actors; favourable enabling conditions-technological, economic and institutional-reduced perceived risks and aligned incentives for reform; and reinforcing feedback mechanisms strengthened political will and generated self-perpetuating momentum. Vietnam's experience enriches broader discussions on digital transformation and state governance.
The 2023 general elections in Thailand delivered an unexpected setback to the historically dominant Pheu Thai Party (PTP), the first election since 2001 in which it failed to come first. In the PTP's northern stronghold of Chiang Mai Province, the emergent Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the national ballot, captured nearly all of the constituencies. This article investigates the factors underlying the electoral decline of the PTP and its predecessor parties, with a focus on developments in Chiang Mai. Drawing on macro-level electoral data and 20 original in-depth interviews, it argues that the PTP's waning appeal is rooted in its diminishing resonance on key ideological issues and its continued reliance on entrenched patronage networks. The electoral results are best understood as part of a gradual shift in votes away from the PTP to opposition parties between the 2011 and 2019 elections, culminating in the MFP's breakthrough in 2023. If it is to regain its top spot, the PTP must reimagine its welfare strategies and reaffirm its democratic commitments if it is to regain lost ground in future elections.
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a wave of anti-Chinese discrimination and hate crimes around the world. However, somewhat surprisingly, no major incidents were reported from Indonesia, a country with a long history of anti-Chinese discrimination and violence. Perhaps even more remarkably, general anti-Chinese sentiment declined during the pandemic. This article explains the reasons for this trajectory in negative attitudes towards Chinese Indonesians. Building on insights from resource mobilization theory and utilizing original data from public opinion surveys before and during the pandemic, it argues that the absence of anti-Chinese violence and the decline in publicly expressed prejudice against the Chinese in Indonesia are closely linked to elite choices to deprive Islamists of crucial resources for mobilization. Therefore, the article provides further evidence that anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia does not simply escalate spontaneously during times of crisis. Instead, our data highlights the importance of political manipulation and resource mobilization in forming public attitudes towards a minority group.
