2. Theoretical Frameworks
2.1 The Border Studies Background
In the past 20 years, border studies have been witnessed a significant expansion (Houtum, 2000).
It contents of various scholars, researchers from a large number of social sciences studies such as,
“geography, anthropology, sociology, ethnography, economic disciplines, political science, international relations, etc” (Berzi, 2017, pp.10). A wide spectrum of topics regarding borders had emerged in socio-economic development, culture studies and political sciences. According to Perkmann (2003) Cross-border cooperation governances with various types of forms, institutes, topics and scales specifically show their attraction with Geographers and political scientists.
The emergence of globalization economy is making nation-states had to rescale themselves (Berzi, 2017). Indeed, nowadays, the power of nation-states has been re-organized and re-distributed into other low political national entities (regional and local authorities). Simultaneously, supra-national organizations also play a more important role in the general picture (the EU, ASEAN etc).
Additionally, “The new regionalist dynamic introduces new forms of territorial governance at both a macro scale (the EU, ASEAN) and micro scale (the establishment of the ‘Euroregions’or cross-border cooperation in ASEAN countries) that is mainly rely on the multi-level approach.” Shaw and Söderbaum, 2003; Amin, 2004, as cited in Berzi 2017, pp.10-11)
Furthermore, As pointed out by Paasi (2003, as cited by Berzi, pp.11), the European integration in both local and regional cooperations is currently experiencing an emergence of their important role in the political and institutional agendas. The spread of globalization flows made these practices happening not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world.
Finally, “the growing academic and institutional interest in cross-border spatial planning is boosting rethinking processes of new territorial strategies” (Berzi, 2017, pp.11). Hence, these practices prove that today borders has become a central place in the academic debate, particularly their meaning, functions (O‘Dowd, 2001) and perception from multiple actors (Paasi 1996, 2003)
9 2.2. The Concept of Cross-Border
The borderlands, under the perspective of territorialist approach is a territory which have been directly affected by overlapping national borders. The borders provoke a splitting of pre-existing ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural pattern due to the involvement of geopolitical and political factors.
(Anderson and O’Dowd, 1999).
The existence of the borders led to the introduction of new normative and social code, also, a new deterritorializing process has emerged as a new threat for the development of local identities and internal socio-economy of the borderlands. (Berzi, 2017). Since the late of 19th century, this process had risen in Europe following nation state ideology emergence and reinforcement of the sense of belonging to the state (Sahlins, 1989, as cited by Berzi, 2017, pp 11-12).
However, the benefits of the presence of borders on local people were undeniable such as illegal trade, smuggling, the reaffirmations of some “pre-border” historical rights for breeders, fishermen, or enduring family ties (O’Dowd 2001, as cited by Berzi, 2017, pp.12).
Furthermore, Berzi (2017, pp.12, as cited by Berzi, 2017, pp. 12) explained “local communities reinterpret the border according to three main senses: an administrative and political barrier that limits neighbouring interactions, a resource for the economic exchanges, and a symbol of local identity”
2.3. The Cross-Border Cooperation Paradigm
Popescu (2012) in his book “Bordering and Ordering in the 21st Century” insists that those cross-border practices first appeared in Europe in 1960s. Nowadays, they are not only become an integral part of EU integration processes but also in other parts of the world such as North America, South America, Africa and South East Asia thanks to the emergence of the Globalization flows.
According to Popescu, the limitation of borders among countries was the main factor for the creation of cross border or transborder cooperation due to the high demands of global mobility.
The cross border cooperation consists of a series of practices which aim to strengthen the permeability of national borders. “Accordingly, neighboring local, regional and national actors
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engage in multifaceted cooperation across borders in order to find mutually beneficial solutions in common problems that cannot be effectively addressed in a national framework. The primary goal is to transcend the barrier function of border to allow the functional integration of neighboring borderlands” (Popescu, 2012, pp-121) which could be seen in the impact of Vietnamese-Cambodia border cooperation in the case of Moc Bai City and neighboring regions.
Additionally, the emergence of neo-liberalism and the fall of the Berlin wall at the end of 20th century inspired and provided an essential opportunity structures for the raise of cross border cooperation and “open” borders.
2.4. Cross Border Cooperation in the structure of international economy in the 21th Century.
The globalization in the twentieth century has changed the exclusive building of sovereignty, territory, Identity, and border claimed by nation states. Indeed, the territorial visions of economic, political, social and cultural processes did not overlap the border state anymore. Nowadays, the demands for cooperation among states to share common goals, such as participation in international organizations, regional alliance and large scale infrastructure projects require the border permeability to be maintained as the mechanism for interstate exchange flows. (Popescu, 2012)
The changing process of capitalism in the 21th century was also a vital factor that shaped the perception of borders in the globalization era. According to Popescu (2012), Capitalism is processing a multifaceted re-shaping of its relationship with nation-states. In the globalization era, capitalism has proved itself as a dominant economic and ideological system and decreased the vital role of border state as a mechanism for the protection of domestic market against other country competitors.
Indeed, the neoliberal ideas of free-trade which was considered as one of the most important doctrine of capitalism has enforced world-wide competition as a new strategy of wealth accumulation at global scale and denounced national protectionisms as an outdated development
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strategy. Hence, the “open border” now become the major factor that creates a new global border regime (Popescu 2012)
2.5. Cross Border integration Based Economic Cooperation
Bilchak (2014) interprets integration as the combination of economic, political and legal elements which was developed gradually from bottom-up. This combination requires successful stages in the establishment of the free trade area, customs union, common market, economic union and full economic integration. (Figure 3)
FIGURE 3: Stages of Border integration (Bilchak, 2014, pp.73)
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B. Balassa (1962) had ordered these stages. At the very first is the involvement of product market into the integration, the capital and labour market take part in later and the social sphere will eventually join. In combination with those elements, the needed institutional reforms will also take part in the process. The introduction of preferential rates will lead to the open of free trade area.
The work of Bilchak (2014, pp.73) following Kramer (1969) posted the non-institutional form of integration will happen at the first place including
- “various inter-company agreements, joint ventures, company mergers representing various countries, the establishment of international business alliances as well as international non-governmental organisations” Bilchak (2014, pp.73)
The integration of institutions requires three successive stages
• Integration through unilateral state activities: The foreign policy of a state will determine the rates of their own economic policies (increase or decrease)
• Cooperative integration: Take part in bilateral or multilateral international agreements with neighbor countries to establish the cross-border co-operations.
• Institutional integration: The creation of a supranational institutions with the authority to make decision regarding economic policy of the whole region.
In the institutional term, Bilchak (2014, pp.74) believess that:
“every economic integration needs its own bodies, which in the new combined economy operate those functions, which prior to that were performed by the national institutions in relation to their national economies”
3. Methodology
3.1. How the research was conducted
The research would be conducted and researched by analyzing data from previous reports, researches, papers, articles (Government, researchers etc) to figure out the the changes in socio-economic development of the local people, especially those who are working in the Border
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Economic Zone (BEZ). To evaluate these changes, there are some data that would be taken into account:
• The Growth of GDP per capita of the province throughout the years
• People Standard of Living with Income
• Total investment of the government, investors with jobs created by them
• The changes in infrastructure of the region
Therefore, my research would be broken down into three separate phases.
First of all, the change in GDP total income per capita since the BEZ was established will show how much the people standard of living of local people was improved. Of course, to prove it was an improvement, I would like to compare with the GDP growth of the whole country.
There were various kinds of Data about the economic improvement of the region which could be found on the internet. However, most of them were journalist articles and the information was too general and could only provide limited idea of the whole picture. Hence, to collect the full and precise data, I had to contact local government to have their annual reports on socio-economic development. These reports were conducted by the government and researchers who were assigned and censored by the Government so the legitimacy was guaranteed.
Based on the collected data, I made a comparison of Total income, GDP growth, number of investors and capital throughout the years to see the differences in the development of the region years by years. After comparing and assessing the data from 2000 to 2018. I believe that the progress of implementation of the BEZ should be divided into two separated phases of improvement. Due to the up and down and changes in investment policies, these two phases would be considered contrast to each other.
• From 2000 to 2010: This period of time could be seen as the golden age of the BEZ with various kind of policies that benefited the local employees, customers, investors.
It also experienced the highest number of investors, capital from outside to the region.
• From 2010 to 2018: The improvement of the region was slowed down due to the rapid decline of investment. The government also limited the supporting policies for investors (duty free goods, tariff barriers etc) and tightened the trading policies. The
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previous policies also showed their weak points and were manipulated by local people to illegal activities, mostly smuggling.
To understand the situation and why it happened to the BEZ, I came to the last phase of the research, figure out the impact of the BEZ on the socio-economic life of local people and vice versa. Of course, this process will be also conducted with the 2 period of times which i mentioned above. To interpret and prove these impacts I mostly used the theoretical framework of cross border integration – based economic cooperation (Bilchak, 2014)
Additionally, the changes in economic policies with the region could also be considered as one of the main factors which contributed to the up and down of the BEZ from 2010 to 2018 period of time. My hypothesis is the loose economic policies of the government from 2000 to 2010 were manipulated by local people which led to the loss of income tax for the government. The policies and decisions of the government could be found in the internet or provided by local government themselves.
The current situation of the BEZ would be observed via narrative research. I stayed at the region for 4 days, it’s not too long but could probably help me to visionize the normal life, investment in infrastructure, activities of the common markets, activities of local people, especially business men with cross-border trade activities (both legal and illegal). The goal of this narrative research is to offer an explanation for the story of the BEZ, could it prove my hypothesis?
3.2. Literature Review
In this research, I made a literature review before starting to outline the thesis. As mentioned in the “Earlier Research” part. There were very few previous researches which could be found on the internet about the region, especially related to the BEZ. Most of them were too general and focused on the Vietnam-Cambodia economic relation. Moreover, all these researches were conducted in Vietnamese only.
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I also took a look on other resources from outside Vietnam and found some projects that were conducted in English and focus on the cross border regions of ASEAN only, the Moc Bai BEZ was mentioned in these researches but not specifically, only in an overview pictures. Some of them could be listed out below:
• Kudo, T. (2009), ‘Border Area Development in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS):
Turning the Periphery into the Center of Growth’, in Kuchiki, A. and S. Uchikawa (eds.), Research on Development Strategies for CLMV Countries. ERIA Research Project Report 2008-5, pp.53-72.Jakarta: ERIA: The research from Mr Kudo explained the advantages of the border regions in term of economic cross-border cooperation and integration particularly focus on the relation between less developed regions (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar) and developed regions (Thailand and China) and how these processes could benefit from these location advantages of the border areas..
Additionally, He provided an overview approach on the GMS project from 1998 until now, discussed why it is not growing as expected and raised some explanation which I found interesting when applied these hypotheses into Moc Bai city case. More importantly, Kudo had prompted the importance of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) including export processing zones (EPZs) (which have common factors with the Moc Bai BEZ), explained their advantages in applying them into the Border Areas. The explanation of Kudo on the connection between the service link costs and the growth of border industry was also benefited for my theoretical framework.
• ASSESSMENT OF GREATER MEKONG SUBREGION ECONOMIC
CORRIDORS (2018). 10th Economic Corridors Forum. Southeast Asia Department, Asian Development Bank. This report from Asian Development Bank provided an overview of the economic corridors in the ASEAN which also included the Southern Economic Corridor from Thailand to Cambodia and finish in Vietnam. The Moc Bai city was located in that route. Via the report, I can barely have an overview on main elements which contributed to the development of the cross border area in Moc bai city.
For example, the situation of Border crossing facilities, Road Transport Infrastructure, Special Economic Zones, investment environment and the policies of the state toward the region in international researcher’s point of views.
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In the first research, both qualitative and quantitative research are implemented. The Author collected secondary data via government reports and other researchers, while he also conducted some surveys which helped to discover the investment factors in the regions.
The second article was a report from Asian Development Bank which was mainly conducted by quantitative methods and primary data with statistical analysis.
3.3. Secondary Data Research
As aforementioned, my thesis would be conducted by analyzing data from previous reports which means secondary data was necessary. However, due to the specificality of the issue, there was nothing has been done regarding to the BEZ in Tay Ninh, especially in English. I have made a research in both Vietnamese and English resources and found out some general secondary data that could be make sense. For example, Vu and Do (2012) provided an information on the GDP Growth of the whole region in the period of time from 2000-2010 was above 14%, the growing speed of industrialization was 26%. The downfall of Agriculture was also remarkable (from 47.7%
to 26.8%.
However, the data which I found on the internet was only general information which can help me to have an overview approach on the issue. As discussed in the part “How the research was conducted”, I would like to divide my research into 2 separate periods of time due to differences in the socio-economic development and the up and down of the BEZ. Hence, regional specific annual economic data reports were what I was looking for (GDP years by years, annual individual and total income reports, annual investment reports etc). They were secondary data which was hardly to be found on the internet. Also, they were gathered and conducted by bye Government and related organizations. Politically, in Vietnam, most of these information was difficult to be reached if I am just a normal person. Therefore, to get the necessary data, it’s crucial for me to find a person that could help me to approach the resource.
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As Adam Johnson (2007) mentioned in his book: “Research Methods for Graduate Business and Social Science Students”, secondary data is much useful in case the researcher doesn’t have enough time or money to conduct a proper research on primary data which also fit my situation.
(1) The collecting of secondary data would also help me to me to discover a large representative sample which significantly exceed my ability, in this case, the socio-economic development of the Moc Bai city in 20 years.
(2) As the research looks over the 20 years development of the region, secondary data from the government, organizations would provide a longitudinal data that shows the trends fluctuated through the years.
(3) Due to my modest time fund, it’s suitable for me to choose secondary data researching as my main method. It does not require too many time and money to collect. I can save my time mainly to analyze and interpret the data which I collected.
The disadvantages of the method were revealed by Adam Johnson (2007) and they were also problems that I had to deal.
3.4. Ethical consideration in using secondary data
Smith (2008) argues that secondary data does not require researchers to collect new data from many tricky steps as using primary data research which may require ethical approval. Nevertheless, it also does not mean that researches which have secondary data related do not need to consider ethical issues especially how the result would be used in one’s research, is it different with the initial purpose when they are first collected while the respondent did not necessarily agree. In the surveys and interviews, the participants could be anonymized but they require the interviewers to approach participants by coming directly to their home, places and it built a rapport of trust between them then maybe some sensitive questions could appear. However, in my research, I mostly used secondary data from economic reports to conduct my research. There were a few
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sensitive questions on political situation but they were conducted by the government organizations so they were for sure filtered.
When using the secondary data from other authors and organizations, i needs to follow the citation rules strictly. According to TENK (2012) - The Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity guideline on the responsible conduct of research, my responsibility is to respect other researchers and the original sources, referencing the publications with a proper citation system.
Johnson (2007) pointed out that documentation is one of the most crucial steps of using secondary data. It also should be considered as an ethical framework for researchers who is collecting secondary data. According to Johnson, there are some must-do activities in collecting secondary data.
• Recording correctly the information (name and address of library, web address, book and page numbers etc)
• It is very important to too to cite when the data was recorded (date, month, year), the authority of the sources is also needed to be referenced.
• Making sure of the names of author behind the data, who did the research and their names must appear in the research as main author (in case they agree to show their names) Besides, as a researcher I must have a responsibility in avoiding these violations against the
• Making sure of the names of author behind the data, who did the research and their names must appear in the research as main author (in case they agree to show their names) Besides, as a researcher I must have a responsibility in avoiding these violations against the