Community-based policing of natural disasters in Vietnam: analysing the ‘four-on-the-spot’ model

Abstract

Vietnam, one of the few remaining communist countries in the world, is a unique and under-researched context for exploring the governance and provision of security before, during and after natural disasters. Its geographical location means that it is extremely vulnerable to the environmental impacts of climate change, particularly hydrometeorological disasters such as typhoons and floods. For this reason, policing scholars worldwide are increasingly interested in how Vietnam’s police agencies manage natural disasters. Up to now, most of the existing literature has centred on the experiences of Western countries. The lack of empirical research in countries like Vietnam accounts for our lesser knowledge of how communist approaches to community-based policing support disaster management, recovery, and resilience-building. In this study, we use a combination of desktop research, case studies, and interviews with police officers to describe how Vietnam’s ‘four-on-the-spot’ (FOTS) community-policing model aligns with the country’s disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery capabilities. We consider the strengths and limitations of a FOTS-based approach to ‘resilience policing’ noted in the wider literature on adaptive governance and present some practical recommendations for enhancing the adaptability of Vietnamese police in disaster-prone regions. These lessons may potentially be applied to other climate-affected regions in Vietnam.