Institutional Creation: A New Foundation for Development
The 12th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee recently reviewed many contents, including discussions, comments and assessments of important Resolutions in recent times, related to the process of perfecting institutional conditions in our country. Accordingly, continuing to innovate institutions in the spirit of strongly shifting from "management" thinking to "development creation" thinking is one of the key conclusions of the Conference.
Dr. Nguyen Van Dang• August 6, 2025
The 12th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee recently reviewed many contents, including discussions, comments and assessments of important Resolutions in recent times, related to the process of perfecting institutional conditions in our country. Accordingly, continuing to innovate institutions in the spirit of strongly shifting from "management" thinking to "development creation" thinking is one of the key conclusions of the Conference.
The Resolutions under consideration include Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, dated June 16, 2022 of the 13th Party Central Committee on continuing to innovate and perfect institutions and policies, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of land management and use; Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW, dated November 9, 2022 of the 13th Party Central Committee on continuing to build and perfect the socialist rule-of-law State of Vietnam in the new period; Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW, dated October 25, 2017 of the 12th Party Central Committee on continuing to innovate and reorganize the apparatus of the political system.
When discussing institutions, researchers often divide them into two groups: Formal institutions (written) and informal institutions (unwritten). Since 1989, James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, two prominent representatives of the "New Institutional" approach, defined "institutions as a relatively stable set of rules and organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are less variable in response to individual change and are quite stable in response to individual expectations as well as changes in external circumstances".
In fact, when considering the formal institutional framework in each country, three basic components are often of interest, including: Organizational system (apparatus), system of operating procedures and principles, system of standards regulating the behavior of individuals, organizations, as well as diverse relationships between different subjects. The main function of the institutional framework is to shape and regulate the behavior of individuals, organizations, as well as political, administrative, economic and social relationships.
Development lessons from many countries suggest that a complete, modern and strong institutional framework will not only ensure stability and predictability for production, business activities, social relations and state management activities, but can also promote dynamism and creativity for social forces. Thanks to that, good institutions not only maximize but also protect and nurture resources for the country's sustainable development.
Regarding the implementation of the Resolutions related to the above-mentioned institutional framework, the 12th Conference assessed that we have initially achieved positive results. Specifically, "The legal system has been formed and completed in a relatively synchronous, public, transparent, and accessible manner, basically regulating all areas of social life; creating a legal foundation for socio-economic development, ensuring national defense, security and international integration".
The viewpoints and policies in Resolution 18 on land management and use "have been institutionalized and implemented synchronously and promptly, and have initially been proven correct and appropriate in practice, contributing to the liberation of land resources to meet the country's development requirements".
Resolutely implementing the summary of Resolution 18 on streamlining the political system's organizational structure, we have deployed a two-level local government in 34 provinces and cities, with 3,321 communes, wards and special economic zones. Preliminary results show that "the basic apparatus operates well, without major problems, cadres and civil servants have initially adapted; work processing procedures are relatively smooth, public services are resolved faster; People express their agreement and hope that the new model will be more effective".
Looking to the future, the 12th Conference also made objective assessments of the shortcomings and limitations of the institutional innovation process in our country. Typically, "The thinking of law-making in some areas is still inclined towards management, limiting innovation, unlocking resources, and creating new growth drivers". Regarding land institutions, "the implementation process still has some difficulties and obstacles that reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of State management and have not fully exploited the potential of land resources to serve the socio-economic development of the country".
It can be seen that the above shortcomings reflect the limitations of traditional State management thinking, which emphasizes the central role of the government along with the ability to monitor and control socio-economic activities, which are mainly implemented through the institutional system. In the context of modern society, when people's living needs as well as business activities become increasingly diverse and complex, such classical thinking and management models will increasingly reveal their inappropriateness and failure to keep up with the development level of society.
Since the 11th National Congress (2011) of the Communist Party of Vietnam, institutions have been identified as one of the strategic breakthroughs for the country's development. Although the process of institutional reform in our country has been carried out with great efforts and achieved encouraging initial results over the past decade, at many recent Central Conferences as well as statements by Party and State leaders, institutions and the legal system are still considered "bottlenecks of bottlenecks"; "legal thinking is still more about management than about development creation; processes and procedures still have shortcomings".
Today, globally, institutions are considered one of the leading “resources” for development. In other words, a country that wants to develop cannot necessarily maintain an institutional framework that is incomplete, even outdated with the reality of modern social life.
Therefore, the recent 12th Central Conference continued to affirm the guiding viewpoint of the process of institutional innovation and improvement in our country, which is to "strongly shift from "management" thinking to "development creation" thinking. It can be seen that, by emphasizing the requirement of "development creation", the Party has determined that national development, not State management, needs to be placed in the central position, and must be considered the destination of the institutional reform process in our country.
That means, all institutional additions and modifications must contribute to maximizing all resources of the country, mobilizing the strength of all social forces to form a total national force to serve the country's development. We believe that, with the spirit and very modern guiding views from the 12th Conference, the process of removing institutional bottlenecks in our country will move strongly, with clear changes and positive impacts in the near future.
