The Effect of Education on Civic and Political Engagement in Nonconsolidated Democracies: Evidence from Nigeria

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Larreguy, Horacio; Marshall, John
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Columbia University
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00633
• 发表日期: 2017-07
• 页码: 387-401
• 关键词: field experiment; voter turnout; PARTICIPATION; CITIZENSHIP; AFRICA; VIOLENCE; kenya

摘要

Developing democracies are experiencing unprecedented increases in primary and secondary schooling. To identify education's long-run political effects, we use a difference-in-differences design that leverages variation across local government areas and gender in the intensity of Nigeria's 1976 universal primary education reformone of Africa's largest ever educational expansionsto instrument for education. We find large increases in basic civic and political engagement: better educated citizens are more attentive to politics, more likely to vote, and more involved in community associations. The effects are largest among minority groups and in fractionalized areas, without increasing support for political violence or own-group identification.