Varieties of Segregation

Working Title: Varieties of Segregation: Interethnic Exposure and Economic Perception (with Paige Bollen)

Abstract: Interethnic inequality has long been theorized as a fundamental driver of key sociopolitical phenomena, including interethnic conflict, ethnically-based voting patterns, and clientelistic relationships. Yet, individual citizens operating within identical political contexts vary significantly in how they perceive these inequalities. What can explain variation in these perceptions? We theorize that part of this answer lies in citizens’ everyday exposure to these inequalities. We highlight that measures used to capture levels of inequality between ethnic groups mask the degree to which citizens are exposed to how other ethnic groups are faring economically. This matters because different patterns of segregation provide different information about the economic conditions of other ethnic groups that citizens may use when creating judgments about their ethnic group’s relative political and economic conditions. Combining the Afrobarometer survey, the Demographic and Health Survey, and fine-grained census data from Ghana, we employ a simple decomposition of the interaction index to demonstrate that respondents’ perceptions of interethnic inequality vary by whether they are more exposed to other ethnic groups with electricity or those without electricity. This paper thus adds to the rich literature on intergroup relations by unveiling heterogeneity in individual experiences of inequity, specifically the degree to which it is visible.