The Effects of Higher Education on Transitions to Political Democracy

Ann Hironaka

Studies have shown that literacy and secondary education are important predictors of political participation in the United States. Educated citizens are more likely to vote, more likely to join political groups, and more likely to be informed about political issues of the day (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Nie, Junn and Stehlik-Barry 1996). However, the great majority of these studies have examined political participation in countries with a lengthy history of democracy. The effects of education may be quite different in non-democratic countries, or countries in the process of making the transition to democracy. This paper examines the effects of education on democratization from 1970 to 2000. Modernization theory suggests that the primary role of education on democratization is to supply citizens who are capable of functioning as participants in a democratic society. This argument emphasizes the effects of literacy and mass education (especially secondary school) in preparing citizens for their role in a democratic polity. Institutional theory, on the other hand, suggests that education provides a linkage to world polity models of democracy, giving highly educated students an understanding of alternative political structures beyond their own historical experiences. This approach emphasizes the importance of tertiary education and the influence of highly educated elites in society on democratization. These hypotheses are tested in a pooled time-series analysis, using data on democracy from Freedom House. The analysis supports the institutional hypothesis, showing that countries that have a large tertiary education system are more likely to increase in their level of democracy than countries with low levels of tertiary education, but that the size of the secondary education system has little effect on levels of democratization.

About Ann Hironaka

Ann Hironaka is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on comparative education and its effects on political change and civil conflict. For her NAE/Spencer postdoctoral fellowship project, she examines the effects of the expansion of higher education on the democratization of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe from 1970 to 2000. Beyond this project, she plans to research the effects of educational systems in the Third World on civil society, political stability, and ethnic conflict.