42
HOMICIDE & OTHER VIOLENT CRIMES
And, the result is that, after doing so, literacy rate is rendered trivial (β = 0.102, p = .173). In this respect, while it can be shown that the correlation between income inequality (significant) and literacy rate is not significant at the conventional 5 percent (.05) level, the same appears significant at the less rigorous 10 percent level (r = -.0.135, p = .092). On the other hand, there appears to be a much more significant correlation (r = 0.538, p = .000) between literacy rate and rule of law (significant β). Thus, it seems clear that after isolating the unique contributions of the three (3) IVs from each other, literacy rate fizzled out in favor of the much stronger income inequality and rule of law. The role of the form of government appears similarly trivial, despite the previous showing of a significant correlation between it and the homicide or murder rate. The more rigorous multiple regression analysis shows that the form of government in fact has no significant unique contribution to the total variance of homicide or murder rate. The previous appearance of the significant bivariate correlation between the two (between the IV and the DV) is apparently due to the presence of the problem overlapping variance with other IVs (multicollinearity problem). Results of further correlation analyses between and among the relevant IVs give evidence of this state of multicollinearity, and which results are: the correlation between form of government and income inequality is significant (r = -0.398, p = .000), and that between form of government and rule of law is likewise significant (r = 0.400, p = .000). Necessarily, therefore, at least one of the three IVs has to fade away in the context of a multivariate analysis, and per the algorithm of multiple regression analysis, it has to be the form of government. However, in this respect, it is noteworthy to mention that, under the less stringent 10 percent level of significance, two categories of the form of government would appear with significant negative regression coefficients, namely: semi-presidential & mixed republic (β = -0.128, p = .061) and nondemocratic & absolute monarchy (β = -0.111, p = .094). Now, the negative