Le Dong Hai Nguyen
Master of Science in Foreign Service Candidate
Research & Insights
My latest thinking and research on economics, geopolitics, and society. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Georgetown University.
Op-eds
ASEAN Must Get Its Act Together on Myanmar
As its international prestige and diplomatic relevance are thrown into question, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must show the world it can rein in the rogue member state in its pack. When the Armed Forces of Myanmar (or Burma, depending on where...
What the Roe v. Wade Reversal Means for Abortion Rights in Vietnam
The United States Supreme Court overturned the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade ruling earlier last month, ending the constitutional right to abortion in the country. The court’s highly controversial decision has sent shockwaves across the U.S. and throughout the world,...
Is Authoritarianism the New Normal for Asia?
Democracy is under heavy assault throughout Asia. In the latest 2022 Freedom in the World report released by Freedom House, the continent is home to the three biggest drops in this year's global freedom index. Compared to the previous year, junta-ruled...
California’s carbon-offset disaster reveals why COP26 was a big disappointment
As world leaders gathered in Glasgow last week for the 26th UN climate conference (COP26), one issue had dominated the negotiation table: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which aims to set a global framework for carbon offset trading. The basic idea behind this is...
Was Vietnam’s Chinese COVID-19 Vaccine Debacle Just a Stunt?
There’s hardly any populace on Earth that is more anti-China than the Vietnamese. Several millennia of wars and border skirmishes, from a thousand years under Chinese rule to today’s disputes over the South China Sea, have ensured in Vietnam a deep distrust of its...
The machinations behind Vietnam’s crackdown on online piracy
Vietnamese public security last week prosecuted Nguyen Tuan Tu, owner and operator of Phimmoi, the country’s largest pirate movie streaming site. The conviction marks perhaps the first time that Vietnam invoked Article 225 of the penal code, which...
Research
Universal Cash Grant as a policy to reduce the public sector size in the Middle East
We suggest that instituting unconditional cash grants (UCGs, hereafter) for nationals who choose not to work in the public sector can incentivize employment in the private sector and self-employment/entrepreneurship. Our approach is different from existing policies in...
The Case Against the Universal Basic Income
SB Ekhad’s The Flamboyant Partridge had been on the bestselling list last year. Eager to meet the writer at the Oxford Literary Festival, his fans were shocked to discover that their revered author was merely “a stack of computer hardware fronted by a screen that...
Early-stage insights & ongoing research
This section includes ongoing research drafts, datasets, preprints, and early insights.
Dataset: Is Australian democracy in decline?
Between 2013 and 2020, the Commonwealth of Australia has enjoyed the top spot as the strongest...
Dataset: Largest democratic backsliding by year (2007-2022)
Using the raw historical dataset available on the Freedom House website, we compute and rank the...
Dataset: Trends in Asian Democratization (2008-2022)
Between 2008 and 2019, the aggregate average of the democracy index for all Asia-Pacific countries...
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