IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wzbipi/spvii2023101.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Wants to be Legible? Digitalization and Intergroup Inequality in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Garbe, Lisa
  • McMurry, Nina
  • Scacco, Alexandra
  • Zhang, Kelly

Abstract

Governments across the Global South have begun introducing biometric IDs (eIDs) in an attempt to improve citizen-state legibility. While such initiatives can improve government efficiency, they also raise important questions about citizen privacy, especially for groups with a history of mistrust in the state. If concerns about increased legibility produce differential eID uptake or changes in political behavior, eID initiatives may exacerbate societal inequalities. In a conjoint experiment with 2,073 respondents from four Kenyan regions, we examine how perceptions of and willingness to register for eID under different policy conditions vary across politically dominant, opposition, and "securitized" (heavily policed) ethnic groups. Our results indicate broad support for expanded legibility, with respondents across groups preferring policies that link eIDs with a range of government functions. However, we find meaningful group-level variation in support for specific policy features, and suggestive evidence that policies facilitating greater surveillance may discourage opposition political participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Garbe, Lisa & McMurry, Nina & Scacco, Alexandra & Zhang, Kelly, 2023. "Who Wants to be Legible? Digitalization and Intergroup Inequality in Kenya," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions and Political Inequality SP VII 2023-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbipi:spvii2023101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/274672/1/vii23-101.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robin Burgess & Remi Jedwab & Edward Miguel & Ameet Morjaria & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2015. "The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1817-1851, June.
    2. Thomas Bossuroy & Clara Delavallade & Vincent Pons, 2019. "Biometric Tracking, Healthcare Provision, and Data Quality: Experimental Evidence from Tuberculosis Control," NBER Working Papers 26388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bühler, Mathias, 2024. "Who Benefits from Free Trade?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    2. Biswajit Banerjee & Risto Herrala, 2024. "Testing the impact of liquidation speed on leverage using Indian data," Working Papers 113, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    3. Kahsay, Goytom Abraha & Medhin, Haileselassie, 2020. "Leader turnover and forest management outcomes: Micro-level evidence from Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Paul Pelzl & Steven Poelhekke, 2023. "Democratization, leader education and growth: firm-level evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 571-600, December.
    5. Fajardo Heyward,Paola Carolina & Cuesta Leiva,Jose Antonio, 2023. "Assessing the Success of National Human Rights Action Plans through a Political Economy Lens : The Case of Chile," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10578, The World Bank.
    6. Stefano Gagliarducci & Marco Manacorda, 2020. "Politics in the Family: Nepotism and the Hiring Decisions of Italian Firms," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 67-95, April.
    7. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2020. "Difference-in-Differences Estimators of Intertemporal Treatment Effects," Papers 2007.04267, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    8. Roland Hodler & Paul Schaudt & Alberto Vesperoni, 2023. "Mining for Peace," CESifo Working Paper Series 10207, CESifo.
    9. Mathias Bühler, 2023. "Trade and Regional Economic Development," CESifo Working Paper Series 10270, CESifo.
    10. Bommer, Christian & Dreher, Axel & Perez-Alvarez, Marcello, 2022. "Home bias in humanitarian aid: The role of regional favoritism in the allocation of international disaster relief," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    11. Mueller, Hannes & Garcia-Uribe, Sandra & Sanz, Carlos, 2020. "Economic Uncertainty and Divisive Politics: Evidence from the "dos Españas"," CEPR Discussion Papers 15479, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Blumenstock, Joshua & Callen, Michael & Faikina, Anastasiia & Fiorin, Stefano & Ghani, Tarek, 2023. "Strengthening Fragile States: Evidence from Mobile Salary Payments in Afghanistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 18254, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Kahn, Matthew E. & Sun, Weizeng & Wu, Jianfeng & Zheng, Siqi, 2021. "Do political connections help or hinder urban economic growth? Evidence from 1,400 industrial parks in China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    14. Canen, Nathan & Ch, Rafael & Wantchekon, Leonard, 2023. "Political uncertainty and the forms of state capture," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    15. Jeremy Streatfeild, 2017. "Does This Road Go on Forever? Modelling Sustainability of Infrastructure in Developing Countries," Journal of Infrastructure Development, India Development Foundation, vol. 9(2), pages 69-81, December.
    16. Lee, Yong Suk, 2018. "International isolation and regional inequality: Evidence from sanctions on North Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 34-51.
    17. Yusuke NARITA & Ayumi SUDO, 2021. "Curse of Democracy: Evidence from 2020," Discussion papers 21034, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. Antoine Marsaudon & Josselin Thuilliez, 2016. "Does democracy reduce the HIV epidemic? Evidence from Kenya," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01400833, HAL.
    19. Joan Esteban & Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2018. "A Dynamic Theory of Secession," CESifo Working Paper Series 7257, CESifo.
    20. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2021. "Appointed public officials and local favoritism: Evidence from the German states," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Legibility; Surveillance; Digitalization; Kenya; Political Inequality; Ethnic Politics;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbipi:spvii2023101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wzbbbde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.