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The study proposes a network-based methodology linking Polanyi's ideal types of coordination and deductive blockmodeling to identify different forms of coordination within an economy. Using the proposed methodology, the economy of rice in postsocialist Vietnam is interpreted as a double movement responding to market liberalization. Qualitative and relational data were collected from 323 households and firms in two communes of the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam. Results show that in one case markets and redistribution co-existed as competing forms of coordination, entailing different relations of production and labor conditions; while in the other they blended and constituted a hybrid house-holding system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine mapping latent roles to reveal meaningful structures of social relations with a focus on substance. Equivalence types are discussed in relation to data and the match (or not) between them. An argument for considering row-regular blocks when studying sparse economic networks is provided. A clear distinction is made between the concepts of inconsistencies and errors when assessing fitted blockmodels. A case is made for examining the patterns of inconsistencies for discerning empirical block types. Three empirical economic networks are considered. Two are rice trading networks in Vietnam with the third being a network of foreign direct investments between countries. Attention is focused on formulating and testing three rival blockmodels for the rice trading networks. Established blockmodels have clear substantive interpretations. The analysis of the investment network is more tentative but extends the idea of examining inconsistencies to two-mode networks. Some implications for blockmodeling by using substantive and empirical knowledge are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoclassical theory has not succeeded in explaining the relationship between increasing landlessness and class differentiation in rural southern Vietnam. In this paper, we take a relational approach, using statistical techniques from social network theory, to examine the governance structure of markets in a commune of Tra Vinh province in the Mekong River Delta. We demonstrate that new opportunities provided by the process of market development are accessible only to those households controlling the right bundles of resources in the core agricultural production and trading system of the area. Further, industrial employment is available only to those who have, at some stage, controlled land, while those who have never participated in the land and rice markets are confined to casual agricultural labour. The governance structure, embedded informally in relatively stable market networks, therefore reproduces class divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]