Inequality and Insurgency: A Statistical Study of South Vietnam (Mitchell, 1968)

A data set on the correlates of government control in 26 provinces in South Vietnam, to replicate a study by Mitchell (1968).

Usage

Mitchell68

Format

A data frame with 26 observations on the following 9 variables.

id

a numeric vector (a simple identifier)

province

a character vector for the name of the province

gc

a numeric vector for government control in the province (as a percent)

ool

a numeric vector for owner-operated land (as a percent)

cvlhs

a numeric vector for the coefficient of variation of the distribution of land-holdings, by size

vl

a numeric vector for Vietnamese land, subject to transfer (as a percent of all land)

fl

a numeric vector for French land, subject to transfer (as a percent of all land)

m

a numeric vector for area of mobility

pd

a numeric vector for population density (per square kilometer)

Details

The data are gathered from Table 1 in the document. You should also read the article for more information as to what's happening and for what purpose. Mitchell (1968) is quite clear about where else he's getting these data. Much of what follows can be discerned in the first few pages of Mitchell (1968), which jumps right into a conversation about research design after a brief introduction.

Province names are taken "as is" from Mitchell (1968). Since South Vietnam no longer exists, and these observations are about 60 years old, some of these province names may no longer exist. You may have to search for some old provincial maps of the former Republic of Vietnam in order to understand where some of these provinces are/were (especially if you're interested in the regional variation noted by Paige (1970)).

Los Angeles Times maps inform the government control variable, and there are assumptions that Mitchell makes about the nature of control by the government (South Vietnam), the Vietcong, or the areas that are contested. The "control" here ultimately refers to South Vietnam.

The observations for government control variable are from 1965. Mitchell's footnote in his Table 1 says all other variables (except for population density) correspond with information from 1960. The population density estimate comes from 1964.

The coefficient of variation variable is defined as the standard deviation of land-holding size divided over the mean. If every landholding is of equal size, the observation is 0. Larger values suggest more variability in size of land-holdings with the implication being larger land-holdings are conspicuous in the province. It's a crude, but interesting, measure of inequality with that in mind.

The owner-operated land variable is another crude, but interesting/novel measure. An obvious percentage, 100 implies complete land ownership. 0 implies universal tenancy where peasants work on land they do not own. Some familiarity with the peculiarities of South Vietnamese society at the time is strongly suggested.

The "French land" and "Vietnamese land" variables refer to a specific agrarian reform measure ("Ordinance 57"). The Vietnam version includes both expropriated and redistributed land. The French version includes just expropriated land, per Mitchell. The logic is the Vietnamese version suggests higher values = lower inequality since the measure (partly) includes redistributed land. The French land, being just expropriation, has a single owner (the South Vietnamese government). That suggests higher inequality for higher values. This logic is interesting but questionable, and we'll just have to roll with the premise for the nature of the intended use of these data (i.e. replication). Paige's (1970) objection is more about regional variation in South Vietnam and its varied patterns of land use, and not about the particulars of these two measure (per se).

The mobility measure is a percentage, referring to the percentage of the province that is composed of plains and hills without dense forest.

The data are faithfully (to my level best!) scraped from Table 1 of his article. However, the results that come from a linear model do not perfectly reproduce his results (Equation 2, p. 432). I don't know why this is the case, nor is it that important. It is worth noting that this kind of "step-wise" procedure he employs for selecting a linear model is 100% not how you should do it, and that 33rd footnote he includes on p. 432 would be an automatic rejection at any quantitatively-oriented journal today.

It may interest the user to see re-analyses of Mitchell (1968) from around this time. I include those in the references for your consideration. Briefly, Paige's (1970) objection is that Mitchell (1968) includes radically different land-holding types into assorted measures of inequality and that Mitchell is selecting on 1965 (a watershed moment of insurgency during the war). Paranzino's (1972) critique is primarily statistical, though incorporates some of the issues raised by Paige (1970). Importantly, he correctly notes what the results of the linear model should be (p. 567).

References

Mitchell, Edward J. 1968. "Inequality and Insurgency: A Statistical Study of South Vietnam." World Politics 20(3): 421–38.

Paige, Jeffery M. 1970. "Inequality and Insurgency in Vietnam: A Re-Analysis." World Politics 23(1): 24–37.

Paranzino, Dennis. 1972. "Inequality and Insurgency in Vietnam: A Further Re-Analysis." World Politics 24(2): 565–78.