Political polarization and economic disparity: Do ethnicity and partisanship lead to economic discrimination in Togo?

Abstract

One might wonder how ethnic identity and political partisanship lead to economic discrimination in Togo. This research aims to investigate how the local population perceive the relationship between political polarization and economic discrimination in the context of Togo. Two methodological approaches will be used. The first approach will be based on a field experiment, while the second approach will be based on a household survey from Afrobarometer’s survey data collected in 2022. For the field experiment, hundred student of ages 18 years and above, will be randomly selected in the two public universities of Togo and

blocked in to two groups of 50 students per university. In each group, 25 will receive treatments while the other 25 in each group will serve as the control group. Using difference in mean method and multinomial logit regression, the results are expected to show that misperception of ethnic identity and political partisanship undermine economic discrimination reduction in Togo.