Latest researches on education and democracy

FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE II

POLITICS, POLITICAL ECONOMY AND GOVERNMENT OF
BANGLADESH

SUBMITTED BY: - SUKIRTI AMATYA

ID: - 17262016

SUBMITTED TO: - SULTAN MOHAMMAND ZAKARIA

DATE: - 2017/12/1
The word democracy is made up of two Greek words “Demo” and “Kratos”. “Demo” means people
and “Kratos” means rule, which means democracy means “Rule by the people”. Democracy was
first seen in Greek cities where democracy was direct democracy. But in at that time many people
like women, minority groups, people who didn’t own land and minority people were excluded
from participation. In the modern world, democracy is universally recognized idea and one of the
core values of United Nations. Democracy is not just a mechanism taken in isolation it is a
demanding system in the modern world. Democracy is also known as “Rule of majority”.
Democracy has complex demands, which certainly includes voting and respect for election results,
but it also required protection of liberties and freedom respect for legal entitlement and the
guaranteeing of free discussion and uncensored distribution of news and fair comment. (Sen, 1999)
Democracy and education have been discussed a century ago by John Dewey. According to John
Dewey (Dewey, 1997), democracy and education are closely related. He advocates that democracy
can neither develop nor last without an education that shapes us to understand freedoms and
responsibilities to others. In his key work “Democracy and Education” 1916, he says democracy
is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint
communication experience. We need schools to learn the values, habits, and dispositions that form
the heart of democratic living and that allow us to live “together in ways in which the life of each
of us is at once profitable in the deepest sense of the word, profitable to himself and helpful in the
building up of the individuality of others”. Different level of education provides different basic
life skills. Primary secondary education levels provide basic tolerance and help students to develop
their citizenship and socialization skills. These skills will prepare them to engage in the democratic
practices which will enhance their participation in politics. In higher education, other required
skills like critical thinking skills learned in early education level are more developed. The students
of university-level education are furnished with analytical abilities which allows them to have a
better understanding of political issues and making the better evaluation of the government
performance (Bougharriou, Benayed, & Gabsi, 2017).
In the paper (Glaser, Porta, Silanes, & Shleifer, 2004), presented some evidence that changes in
democracy and other political institutions can be predicted through the changes in schooling. They
also argue that there is the positive effect of education on democracy as there is a causal effect of
education of institutions. But in the paper (Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinshon, & Yared, 2005) argues
that there is no effect of education of democracy or on other political institutions.
There are many types of research on the education and democracy. Some of the researches done
are as follows.
Recent research was done by Nouha Bougharriou, Walid Benayed and Foued Badr Gabsi
(Bougharriou, Benayed, & Gabsi, 2017) in 15 Arab Countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordon,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen)
over the period of 1990-2013. Most Arab Countries illiteracy rate have decreased, in all education
level enrollment rates have increased. Their journal was published in Economic change
restructuring on 18 September 2017. They studied the relationship between education and
democracy. They have used different methods of analysis like difference- GGM, system-GGM in
their study. Their result from the analysis shows that education foster the emergence of democracy.
Education expenditure and improving educational access and equality are key policy priorities to
promote the onset of democracy. They have tested the effects of each measure of education on
democracy separately. But in an attempt to examine which level of education has the higher effect
on democracy, they have introduced primary, secondary and tertiary education level in the single
regression. In their study, under both differences- GMM and system-GMM estimations, the
estimated coefficients of lagged education for all our measures of education have a positive and
statistically significant impact on democracy. The downfall of the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia
and Egypt was successfully led by the young elite who are educated and they carried out peaceful
protests for more democracy and freedom. The study also shows that the female education will
increase the state of democracy in long run. Indeed, increase in the number of gender equality in
education where more educated females taking leading participation in promoting political change
may encourage democracy, according to the System-GMM (System – Generalized Methods of
Moments) estimates in their study.
Gang Wang, Liyun Wu and Rongbin Han, in their journal “College education and attitudes toward
democracy in China: an empirical study” published in Asia Pacific Education Review, have tried
to study on the role of higher education on promoting the democratic values in the Chinese context.
The middle class and lower class respondents who had higher education tend to be more supportive
of democracy. (Chen & Lu, 2011). They have used different methods like cross-sectional,
explanatory, correlational design to analyze the data.
Their research findings show that college education tends to have the positive impact on the
respondent’s attitudes towards democratic values and practices and it also has the most
comprehensive democratic attitudes. Those with college or higher degrees shows that they need to
improve democracy. Furthermore, they support various political participations that inherently
challenge the regime. The results are constant with the modernization theorists’ view on the
positive relationship between education and democracy. The CCP members differ from college-
educated adults and private entrepreneurs. In fact, the analysis in this paper provides empirical
evidence that the dependence on the CCP regime may exist beyond the business elite domain.
College students and Party membership both strongly demand democracy as the well-educated
party embers pursue political development in China. The findings of the study show that the
education, particularly college education is more positively correlated with the support for
democratic values and practices. Though it is hard to say whether the educational reform started
in Jiang Zemin’s era is a consequence of economic development or not, the rapid expansion of
higher education and the dramatic increase in the college enrollments may produce unexpected
challenge toward the Party-State in maintaining its legitimacy as well as its rule (Wang, Wu, &
Han, 2015).
Another research was done by Howard Sanborn and Clayton L. Thyne in 2014 (Sanborn & Thyne,
2014). Their article tries to fill the gap of how education affects democracy and the link across
time and space, through different levels of education influence democratization and conditions
under which education is most likely to promote democracy. Their analysis of eighty-five
authoritarian rules from 1970 to 2008 shows that higher level of primary and tertiary education are
robustly associated with democratization. According to their research, an educated population are
willing to be more tolerant, rational and committed to democratic values. Higher education
institutions may provide students, the change to attain the most marketable skill sets through the
pursuit of university degrees, which trains them to be analytical thinkers and prepares them to be
future leaders and policy makers. Whereas primary education system offers support and
reinforcement for literacy and other basic skills. Thus different levels of schooling have
complementary effects on the possibility of democratization.
Their study also shows that primary and tertiary education both have a significant impact on
democratization stronger. But tertiary education has stronger significance than primary education.
The study also indicates that democracy started in the educated societies last longer than those
from poorly educated society.
In the journal paper on “Economic and social factors driving the third wave of democratization”
published in “Journal of Comparative Economic (2008) by Elias Papaioannou and Gregorios
Siourounis (Papaioannou & Siourounis, 2008), they have shown that democratization is more
likely to emerge in prosperous and mainly educated societies. Education and economic
development are the major factors which determine the intensity of democratic reforms and quick
democratic transitions. In their study, they have found that there is a significant correlation
between the level of education and democracy across countries. They have grouped countries into
five categories of roughly equal number of observations depending on the education level in 1975.
Their study illustrates that among the non-democratic countries with more than four years of
schooling, all but Singapore moved to democratic government. In contrast, of the fourteen non-
democratic countries with less than one year of schooling, only three (Mali, Benin and
Mozambique) implemented democratic reform By constructing a new dataset of political regimes
among 174 countries in the period 1960– 2005, show that democracy is more likely to emerge and
consolidate in educated countries. Education has more impact on democracy than the economy.
In the study of Matteo Bobba and Decio Coviello, they found a new evidence which systematically
predicts democracy. Their results show that levels of schooling appear to be a strong predictor of
improving institutional outcomes, while per capita income has no predictive power (Bobba &
Coviello, 2007)
Overall study shows that education and democracy are closely related. Higher the educated
society, the democracy last longer and tends to start early. Education have more impact on
democracy than other factors. When the citizens are more educated they will be more tolerant
and they tend to follow democratic rules and values more which will lead more democratic
nation.
References
Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., Robinshon, J. A., & Yared, P. (2005). From Education to Democracy? National
Bureau of Economic Research.

Bobba, M., & Coviello, D. (2007). Weal Instruments and weak identification, in estimating the effects of
education, on democracy. Economucs Letters 96, 301-306.

Bougharriou, N., Benayed, W., & Gabsi, F. B. (2017). Education and democracy in the Arab world.
Economic Change Retructuring.

Chen, J., & Lu, C. (2011). Democratization and the Middle Class in China: The Middle class's attitude
towards Democracy. Political Research Quaterly, 705-719.

Dewey, J. (1997). Democracy and education. An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York:
Simon and Schuster.

Glaser, E. L., Porta, R. L., Silanes, F. L.-d., & Shleifer, A. (2004). Do Institutions cause growth? National
Bureau of Economic Research.

Papaioannou, E., & Siourounis, G. (2008). Economic and social factors driving the third wave of
democratization. Journal of Comparative Economics, 365-387.

Rugh, W. A. (2002). Arab Education: Tradition, Growth and Reform. Middle East Journal, 396-414.

Sanborn, H., & Thyne, C. L. (2014, October). Learning Democracy: Education and fall of Authoritarian
Regimes. British Journal of Political Science, 44(04), 773-797. doi:10.1017/S0007123413000082

Sen, A. K. (1999). Democracy as a Universal Value. Journal of Democracy, 10(3), 3-17.

Wang, G., Wu, L., & Han, R. (2015, September). College education and attitudes toward democracy in
China: An empirical study. Asia Pacific Education Review, 16(3), 399-412.