Provincial Political Performance Index in Vietnam: A Pilot Study

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1 Provincial Political Performance Index in Vietnam: A Pilot Study Ngo Huy Duc and Le Thuy Hang The National Academy for Politics and Public Administration, HCMA Abstract Based on Kugler and Tammen (0) theoretical framework and their recommendation for developing countries, a statistical model to estimate indices: Relative Political Extraction (RPE) and Relative Political Reach (RPR) was developed to take into account Vietnamese socio-economic structure and development level. Using this model, an estimation for 0 provinces from regions of Vietnam was carried out with purposes: i) To evaluate the applicability of theoretical model in Vietnam; ii) To identify the usefulness of the indices for Vietnam, especially through a comparison with exsisting performance measures such as PAPI and PCI; iii) To identify conditions for further application. Our result show that: i) The theoretical model can be applied for Vietnam as availability and access to statistical data are satisfactory, although we will need more time and resources to gather from many sources to have a better quality. ii) The indices RPE and RPR for 0 provinces show some counter-intuitive ranking, compared with two popular measures (PAPI and PCI), and also compared with level of economic development in each provinces. The indices help to understand some aspects of political leadership that other indices might miss due to the fact that all of them are perception indices. iii) In the future, if an estimate for all provinces is carried out, a careful effort should be paid to : i) Improvement of statistical model as our test statistics were not strong; ii) Improvement of data quality. An single intergrate index should be developed for the indices have more practical impacts. Introduction Measurement of political performance index has a number of approaches, which can be broadly divided into groups: i) Approaches emphasize political values such as democracy, equality etc. E.g. Campbell, Converse, Stokes and Miller (60); Verba and Nie (); Fiorina (); ii) Approaches emphasize economic welfare; e.g. Lane và Ersson (000), Roller, 00); and iii) Approaches emphasize political legitimacy as an integrated whole. E.g. Gilley (006) và

2 Schmitter, P. & Schneider, C. (00). Several prominent problems with these approaches are ) Political values are subjective, and in many cases contradictory. Therefore, the indices based on them are not comparable across countries and time. to great variance; ) If based on economic performance, then the indices will not account for non-economic achievement, which are essential to political leadership; To address these issues, some authors develop another approach, which hopefully can overcome these weaknesses and are more comparable across cultures and political systems, while at the same time can be applicable to different government level. This paper is based on pronge approach and the theoretical framework of Kugler and Tammen (0) and their recommendation for developing countries. However, due to limitation in access to data, we develop a model to estimate only indices: Relative Political Extraction (RPE) and Relative Political Reach (RPR) for provinces in Vietnam. As a pilot study, we have main purposes: ) To assess the applicability of the model in Vietnamese context; ) To compare with existing indices related to political performance of provinces in Vietnam to assess usefulness of these measures. The paper is organised in main sections: The first section describe some main characteristic of Vietnam economic development level and administrative structure, which affect our choice of variables included in modified model. The second section specified the statistical model to be estimated, data description and issues. The third section present estimated indices and their interpretation in comparison with other provincial indices. Generally, we will skip technical discussion to focus on main purposes. The details of statistical diagnostic tests will be available upon requests from authors. I. Some Characteristics of Provinces in Vietnam Vietnam is in a transition to a market economy since 0. The state sector share in national production is steady declining but still accounts for % of national GDP. State owned enterprises still play a dominant role, as they control some key sectors of the economy such as banking and financial, electricity, mining, oil production and telecommunication. Agricultural sector still account for a major part of population with 0% population live in rural area. Agriculture production accounted for.% GDP (0). The political power in Vietnam remained highly concentrated hierarchical despite ongoing decentralization process since late 0. All local governments are subjected directly to the level above so the autonomy of the provinces are quite limited. Geographically and culturally, Vietnam has distinct regions: the North, the Central and the South. Although, the local government structure in all regions are identical, the economic structure are different, mostly due to natural comparative advantages. At the time being, in the national

3 development strategy, Vietnam identify 6 economic regions. Each region normally has one city/province as a center, which enjoy bigger budget investment spending from central government. The Ho Chi Minh city and Hanoi are exceptions as they account for. II. Model Specification and Data Description. The Relative Political Extraction (RPE) The formula for RPE : RPE = Actual extraction Predicted extraction SR GDP To estimate predicted extraction we modify equation (Tammen and Kugler, 0) to get t ( GDPdn) ( Agr / GDP) ( Min / GDP) ( Exp / GDP) Where: SR (State revenue) is annual budget revenue of province. GDP is provincial GDP. t is time trend. GDPdn is GDP per capita of province (in constant price ). Agr is provincial agricultural production. Min is provincial mineral production. Exp is total provincial annual export value. The agricultural sector variable was included due to the fact that major part of Vietnam population is in agricultural sector. Variable Exp. also reflects the fact that the needed effort to mobilize from this sector is relatively low (See discussion in Kugler and Tammen, 0).. The Relative Political Reach The formula to calculate RPR is as follows: RPR = Actual reach Predicted reach The modified model for Vietnam is AR POP t ( GDPdn ) ( HC) ( GD) ( DTH ) Where:

4 AR/POP is active rate. i.e. AR = population in working age (-60 year old) unemployed seasonal employed = Tuoi (-60). POP is provincial population. GDPdn is provincial GDP per capita (billions VND, in constant price of ). HC is public administrative sector, measured as wage spending/total expenditure. GD is education rate, i.e. ratio of population with secondary and up education. DTH is urban population/total population.. Data and Method of Estimation Data for provinces from 6 provinces were collected from the General Statistic Office (GSO). The sample were chosen to represent 6 regions (See the appendix ). Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh cities were deliberately excluded due to their special status (outliers). Vietnam used MPS (Material product system) before, which is quite different from SNA (System of national accounts) today. We could not obtain data before 000 for some variable, as they were not included or not separated from aggregated data. Therefore the data series included only years from 000 to 0. Data used constant price of to avoid bias due to inflation. The method used for estimation is OLS on the pooled data set ( years x provinces). The main data description are shown in the Appendix. This method has a number of weaknesses in term of statistical rigorousness, especially when we combined cross-section and time series data. However, within this pilot study, we will not discuss here. III. Results and Interpretation. Provincial RPE Charts. show the estimated provincial RPE in the year 0. There only provinces have RPE bigger than with Hai Phong (A major seaport in the North) being the most effective in mobilization political support. There were some cases are quite counter-intuitive as Hai phong leadership were generally considered not strongly popular. On the contrary, Thai Binh, an agricultural and poor province, once famous in the past for population support for Communist movement and national revolution, is on very low level (0.). Another case is Danang, which is very prominent with a strong provincial leadership and generally considered an exemplar city for other to followed. Danang is ranked among the first by other indices such as PCI (Provincial competitive index) and PAPI (Provincial administrative index) ( perception indices about the provincial governance). Grouping by region shows that RPE also varied greatly within each region (Chart.).

5 Moreover, RPE changes over time also show relative stability (See Chart. and.). Charts. Provincial RPE

6 Chart. RPE by regions 6

7 Chart. RPE changes over time in the most effective provinces Chart. RPE changes over time in the least effective provinces. Provincial RPR The provincial PRP also revealed some interesting features, which might not conform to the anecdotal evidence as in the cases of Da Nang and Son La. Da Nang, as explained above, is generally considered a good example to reach a vast majority of population for political support, especially in city development over the past 0 years. Son La is a mountainous province with diverse ethnic groups. Unlike RPE, the RPR varied not much among provinces. This might be due to the political system as discussed above.

8 Grouping by region (see Chart.) show that variations within with in the regions are consistent. The model specification is appropriate. Chart. Provincial RPR

9 Chart. Provincial RPR by region

10 Chart.6 RPR over the years of the most effective provinces Chart. RPR over the years of the least effective provinces Sơn La Bình Dương Bắc Kan Thái Nguyên Bắc Giang We also put RPE and RPR side by side. Obviously these measure are not correlated (Chart.). The need to have single indicator, integrated from these is obvious. In the table., we put together RPE, RPR RP and other related indices. The firs number in the cell is the value, the second number is ranking among provinces. provin The comparison with other popular indices of political performance revealed some interesting patterns terns which need to explored further. ) No clear correlation between RPE and RPR with either one of indices. In some cases like Danang, Quang tri and Ha Tinh, both RPE and RPR are in sharp contrast to the ranking of PAPI and PCI. ) The comparison with PCI and PAPI is of a particular interest as these indices are generally accepted as indicator of effectiveness effectiv of political leadership in Viet Nam. These indices are perception indices ices with difference approach. PCI based on perception of business commu community, while PAPI based on general population ion perception. So we can expect that PPI add more information about 0

11 Chart. RPE and RPR compared Ninh Thuận Thái Bình Bạc Liêu Tây Ninh Nam Định Tuyên Quang Đồng Tháp An Giang Tiền Giang Lâm Đồng Trà Vinh Bắc Giang Phú Yên Quảng Trị Sơn La Hà Tĩnh Đà Nẵng Bắc Ninh Bình Dương Quảng Nam Kon Tum Thái Nguyên Lào Cai Bắc Kan Hà Giang Vĩnh Phúc Hải Phòng Phạm vi huy động.00.0 Huy động chính trị

12 Table. Comparison with other indices RPE Ninh Thuận 0.6 RPR.0 Thái Bình Tây Ninh Tuyên Quang Đồng Tháp 0. An Giang Lâm Đồng Trà Vinh Phú Yên ,6.0 0.,6., Sơn La 6, Quảng Trị, ,60.6 Bắc Giang, , , 0 0 Tiền Giang , , ,.0 0 PCI. 0.,6 0.6 Nam Định, 0. PAPI 0.66 HDI, 6 Bạc Liêu GDP.

13 Hà Tĩnh Đà Nẵng Bắc Ninh Kon Tum. 0. Thái Nguyên ,.00.6,0 0. 6, Hải Phòng, Vĩnh Phúc, Hà Giang 6, Bắc Kạn, Lào Cai 0, , ,..6 Quảng Nam, Bình Dương, some aspect of the political performance which were not included in these measures. For example, in Da Nang case, while the RPE and RPR are not high (ranking and ), the perception of business and people about the local government were very positive (both PCI and PAPI ranked at the top ). This suggested that the city government extract the resources mostly from outside or use existed asssets (In fact, the government sold public land. All land in Vietnam is of public ownership. There is no private land). Due to this, one might speculate that this sources for development cannot be sustainable. Da Nang government will have problem in the long term when the existed assets ran out and it cannot mobilised resources from its population.

14 Conclusion i) The theoretical model can be applied for Vietnam, judging by consistency of variation across the countrries as well as within regions. The availability and access to statistical data are satisfactory, although we will need more time and resources to gather from many sources to have better quality. ii) The indices RPE and RPR for 0 provinces show some counter-intuitive ranking, compared with two popular measures (PAPI and PCI), and also compared with level of economic development in each provinces. The indices help to understand some aspects of political leadership that other indices might miss due to the fact that all of them are perception indices. iii) In the future, if an estimate for all provinces is carried out, a careful effort should be paid to: i) Improvement of statistical model as our test statistics were not strong; ii) Improvement of data quality. An single intergrate index should be developed for the indices have more practical impacts. References Arbetman, M, và J Kugler (Ed), (). Political Capacity and Economic Behavior. Boulder: Westview Press Campbell, C., P.E. Converse, W.E. Miller, and D.E. Stokes (60). The American Voter. NewYork: John Wiley and Sons Fiorina, M.P. ().Retrospective Voting in American National Elections.New Haven: Yale University Press Gilley Bruce (006). 'The meaning and measure of state legitimacy: Results for countries', European Journal of Political Research No Kugler, J and R. Tammen (ed), (0). The Performance of Nations. Rowman and Littlefield Lane, J. and Ersson. S (000). The New Institutional Politics: Performance and outcomes. London and New York, Routledge Roller, E. (00). The Performance of Democracies: Political Institutions and Public Policy. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press Schmitter, P. & Schneider, C. (00). "Conceptualizing and measuring the liberalization of autocracy and the consolidation of democracy across regions of the world and from different points of departure". In M. Alcantara (ed.), Politica en America Latina. Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca Verba, S. & N. Nie. (). Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper and Row.

15 Appendices Appendix : Provinces (regions) in the Sample PROVINCE STT PROVINCE Red River delta Central Coast Vĩnh Phúc Quảng Nam Hải Phòng 6 Hà Tĩnh Thái Bình Quảng Trị Nam Định Đà Nẵng Bắc Ninh Phú Yên Mountainous area in the North 0 Ninh Thuận 6 Hà Giang Eeast coast in the South Bắc Kạn Tây Ninh Lào Cai Bình Dương Thái Nguyên 0 Bắc Giang Tiền Giang Sơn La Trà Ving Tuyên Quang Đồng Tháp Central Highland 6 An Giang Kon Tum Bạc Liêu Lâm Đồng Mekong river delta Appendix : Statistical description of data set STT Variables Mean St Deviation Min value Max value SR/GDP Agr/GDP Min/GDP Exp/GDP GDPdn AR/POP HC GD..0.. DTH.6..0.