Who’s Asking? Interviewer Coethnicity Effects in African Survey Data

Bibliographic Data

ID6246711
AuthorsClaire L Adida (0000-0002-3493-5539, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA), Karen E Ferree (0000-0001-9294-7784, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA), Daniel N Posner (University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA), Donald Posner (0000-0002-6933-3474, University of California, Los Angeles), Amanda Lea Robinson (0000-0002-8315-7753, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA)
Year2016
Volume49
Issue12
Pages1630-1660
Publication date2016-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Political Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4140 • E-ISSN: 1552-3829
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0010414016633487
OpenAlexW2291509161
LanguageEN
Citations received88
References cited66

Face-to-face interviews constitute a social interaction between interviewer and respondent, and in the African context, social interactions are strongly shaped by ethnicity. Yet research using African survey data typically fails to account for the effect of shared ethnicity on survey responses. We find that respondents give systematically different answers to coethnic and noncoethnic interviewers across surveys in 14 African countries, but with significant variation in the degree of bias across question types and types of noncoethnic dyads, with the largest effects occurring where both the respondent and interviewer are members of ethnic groups with a history of political competition and conflict, and where the respondent or interviewer shares an ethnicity with the head of state. Our findings have practical implications for consumers of African survey data and underscore the context dependence of the social interaction that constitutes the survey experience

Competition (biology · Context (archaeology · Ethnic group · Geography · Interview · Political science · Politics · Respondent · Sociology · Statistics · Survey data collection · Variation (astronomy · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Psychology · Social Capital and Networks · Social Psychology

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