by Trinh Van Toan., Ph.D1, Nguyen Thi Huyen Chi, MA
ABSTRACT
This article examines the shift from identification-and-rebuttal approaches toward a governance framework
for ideological deviance in the defense of the Party’s ideological foundations amid the digital transformation.
By clarifying the concepts of ideological norm and ideological deviance as categories anchored in value
reference frameworks and political legitimacy, the article traces how the manifestations of ideological
deviance have fundamentally changed: no longer confined primarily to forms of direct antagonism, they
increasingly infiltrate, interweave with, and propagate across open, decentralized, and highly interactive
information environments. From this basis, the article argues that traditional identification-and-rebuttal
methods reveal structural limitations — reactive in orientation, delayed in response, and constrained in
control efficacy — under contemporary conditions. Building on this diagnosis, the article advances an
approach to governing ideological deviance as a mechanism for managing politico-social risk, with the
strategic emphasis shifted from addressing surface manifestations to regulating the conditions under which
deviant cognitive tendencies form and spread. The proposed governance model is analyzed across four
dimensions — actors, content, environment, and policy instruments — and operates through a continuous
cycle of detection, analysis, intervention, and adjustment. The article further draws out implications for
Party-building work, with particular attention to cadre management, inspection and supervision, and
technology application, with a view to strengthening proactive capacity in safeguarding the Party’s
ideological foundations in the current period.
