Land tenure inequality, harvests, and rural conflict ... - e-Archivo

land invasions) or the duration of the conflict (among others, Korpi and Shalev,
1980).
Using participation has problems in itself, however. Firstly, one worries about
measurement error, a serious problem in the kind of evidence used here. Secondly,
participation could be endogenous to the success of the conflict event. Participation is
generally measured at peak participation but peak participation is endogenous to the
prior probability of success (for example people participate more when the probability
of repression is low or when success looks possible).
An oft-used second proxy for intensity is the duration of the conflict event.
But duration is also poorly measured in the types of conflicts described here.
Moreover, in most regression exercises with strike data, duration is negatively related
to the probability of strikers’ success (Card and Olson, 1995: 49-50). Both
measurement error and endogeneity problems recommend avoiding the use duration
and participation in the measurement of the intensity of conflict.
Finally, I do not take into account the outcome of the “conflict event”. In some
cases, it is difficult to conclude that a certain episode ended in a victory or defeat of
peasant and government officials might have reasons to alter the distribution of strike
outcomes. The available evidence suggests workers victories dominated losses until
1934 (FNTT, 2000: 205-6; AE, 1932-33: 650). This is not surprising: a study of
prefects between 1931-1939 shows only 7 per cent of all prefects were military
officers, whereas almost 60 per cent were school teachers, university professors,
doctors and journalists in most cases associated with one of the Republican parties
14