Description
Time Magazine has dubbed 2024 the election year. With about 49% of the world’s population casting their ballots, most of the general public is concerned with voter turnout. However, researchers have long been intrigued by political engagement, especially its correlation with educational attainment. Significant research has been done on the relationship between education and political engagement, yet most results pertain to stable Western democracies. This article endeavors to investigate the effect of education on political participation in a stable, developing democracy context.
The researchers established Senegal as the ideal nation for this experiment due to the fact that it has robust democratic institutions, is historically one of the oldest, strongest democracies in Africa, and, most importantly, has experienced periods of democratic strength and periods of inflated presidential power (from 2004 to 2012). Additionally, Senegal initiated an education reform in the early 2000s that broadened educational access across the nation. This political project allows the researchers to easily compare the effect of education on political engagement before and after educational expansion.
Using Afrobarometer surveys that measure the “social, political, and economic atmosphere in more than 30 countries in Africa,” the article evaluates the effect of education on an individual’s understanding of and interest in politics when democracy is stable and threatened in Senegal. The experiment employs a difference-in-difference strategy (DiD) to limit the effects of confounding factors on changes in an individual’s political engagement. In particular, the goal was to control for the effect of the individual's residence and age, because these could influence the intensity of improvement in their education. The use of DiD isolates the change rate of engagement by the individual. This change rate is what is compared to other individuals impacted by the reform.
Results
The paper ultimately concludes that the link between education and political participation is conditioned by the strength of a nation’s democratic institutions. This is indicated by four crucial pieces of information in their evaluation. First, education enhances knowledge of politics, as citizens with more exposure to the education program are more likely to say they are interested in public affairs, discuss politics often, and that they stay informed about the news. Second, since educated citizens did not take further action to change political outcomes (through voting, etc.) when Senegal’s democracy was stable, it is clear that education is insignificant in influencing national participation overall. Third, the survey results from 2004 to 2012 indicate that the more educated a citizen was, the more likely they were to participate in politics through voting or rallying their concerns with other citizens. Fourth, due to citizens’ political engagement in this 8 year period, researchers concluded that the effect of education was driven by the inflated presidential power. Those with greater education were more critical of Senegal’s democratic quality, but only when democratic institutions were in danger.
The article’s groundbreaking investigation into a democracy in a developing context demonstrates that education in democratic governments is essential. If democratic institutions begin to fall, educated citizens will be at the forefront of repairing their government for the sake of their entire nation.
Team
Members
Horacio Larreguy (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México); Shelley Liu (Duke University)
Related Content
Related Links
Economic Governance, Governance, Citizen Participation, Africa