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Research Department
Introduction
The Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy (IERPE) is a leading institution in Africa in terms of social science research as well as training in modern political economy and applied statistics. The institute has conducted or currently conducting several empirical studies on issues on governance, democracy, state capacity and public goods provision. Two of these studies are randomized evaluation of institutions and public policies. The institute is one of the key partners of the Afrobarometer Network which has been conducting public opinion survey on democracy and governance in 18 African countries.
Summary of Main Research Projects
1. Project on Political Parties
This study explores the impact of electoral campaign strategies on voters’ choice. It aims at measuring the effects of different types of platforms on voters. In this experimental design, we assume a distinction between clientelist and public policy platforms. This approach allows us to identify voters’ expectations and motivate political parties to adopt public policy platform rather clientelist ones. This project also promotes the adoption of electoral platform favoring fair public goods delivery.
The study proceeds in four steps as follows:
- Identification of voters’ expectations at the local level (Pre-campaign data collection) by collecting data on randomly selected areas in each of the counties agreed upon with political parties. Counties are selected based on two criteria : 1) The political parties involved must have a following in the selected areas; 2) The selected area must moderately be a stronghold of the involved parties (This implies that parties should not enjoy an overwhelming support in the area as this would overshadow the treatment)
- A snapshot of voters’ expectations ; messages targeting specific areas and identification of optimal communication strategies for the areas selected.
- An experimental campaign carried out with activists (3 in each area. One of them is appointed by the IERPE and the other two by political parties involved in the area.
- A post-campaign step to assess the impact of the treatment on voters’ choice (particularly on political variables such as participation, candidate selection, vote by gender, education, ethnic origin, membership in NGO’s, etc. The goal is to determine the extent to which the experimental campaign affects voters’ choices. We do so by comparing voting patterns in treatment and control counties).
The six political parties selected are as follows: PRD, RB, CAP Suru, IPD, UDS, and PSD.
IERPE Conference "The Political Barometer of Benin" Results of a nationwide public opinion survey on democracy...