IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v48y2012i4p498-515.html

Understanding Education's Influence on Support for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey Evans
  • Pauline Rose

Abstract

Is education consequential for popular endorsement of democracy in developing societies and, if so, what are the mechanisms that account for this influence? We investigate the micro-foundations of the education--democracy nexus using a survey of 18 sub-Saharan African countries. We demonstrate that educational level is the strongest influence on support for democracy and rejection of non-democratic alternatives via its impact on comprehension of, and attention to, politics. This is consistent with a cognitive interpretation of the effects of education on democratic values rather than one which treats education as a marker of economic resource inequalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey Evans & Pauline Rose, 2012. "Understanding Education's Influence on Support for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 498-515, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:48:y:2012:i:4:p:498-515
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2011.598508
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2011.598508
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220388.2011.598508?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:wbk:wbpubs:13855 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Le défi de l’accès et de la qualité de l’éducation dans les pays en développement
      by marine.talance@gmail.com (Marine de Talance) in BS Initiative on 2015-02-05 15:54:26

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hossein Kaviani & Sayed-Jafar Ahmadi, 2021. "A Cross-Cultural and Trans-Generational Study: Links between Psychological Characteristics and Socio-Political Tendency amongst Urban Population in Afghanistan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-12, June.
    2. Alexander Kemnitz & Martin Roessler, 2023. "The effects of economic development on democratic institutions and repression in non-democratic regimes: theory and evidence," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 145-164, June.
    3. Djemaï, Elodie & Kevane, Michael, 2023. "Effects of education on political engagement in rural Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    4. Santiago López-Cariboni & Xun Cao, 2019. "When do authoritarian rulers educate: Trade competition and human capital investment in Non-Democracies," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 367-405, September.
    5. Joseph Yaw Asomah & Eugene Emeka Dim, 2021. "Determinants of citizens’ support for democracy in Ghana," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2578-2590, November.
    6. Datzberger, Simone & Le Mat, Marielle L.J., 2019. "Schools as change agents? Education and individual political agency in Uganda," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 18-28.
    7. Jangsaeng Kim & Miyang Jun, 2022. "Money, a Drain of Educational Opportunity: A Microregional Study of School Dropouts in Mpigi, Uganda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-15, May.
    8. Bakker Femke E. & Rotondi Valentina, 2016. "Vote for Your Family! Particularism, Support for Democracy and Support for Shari’a in the Arab World," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 115-137, August.
    9. Eshtiyagh, Javad, 2022. "The secularizing effect of education in Indonesia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    10. Demarest, Leila & Kuppens, Line, 2025. "Opportunities or risks for civic education in electoral democracies? Evidence from Nigeria," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).

    More about this item

    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:taf:jdevst:v:48:y:2012:i:4:p:498-515. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    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.