Publication: Deliberate Disengagement: How Education Can Decrease Political Participation in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes
Loading...
Files in English
1,445 downloads
Published
2016-08
ISSN
0003-0554
Date
2016-11-18
Editor(s)
Abstract
A large literature examining advanced and consolidating democracies suggests that education increases political participation. However, in electoral authoritarian regimes, educated voters may instead deliberately disengage. If education increases critical capacities, political awareness, and support for democracy, educated citizens may believe that participation is futile or legitimizes autocrats. We test this argument in Zimbabwe—a paradigmatic electoral authoritarian regime—by exploiting cross-cohort variation in access to education following a major educational reform. We find that education decreases political participation, substantially reducing the likelihood that better-educated citizens vote, contact politicians, or attend community meetings. Consistent with deliberate disengagement, education’s negative effect on participation dissipated following 2008’s more competitive election, which (temporarily) initiated unprecedented power sharing. Supporting the mechanisms underpinning our hypothesis, educated citizens experience better economic outcomes, are more interested in politics, and are more supportive of democracy, but are also more likely to criticize the government and support opposition parties.
Link to Data Set
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Dignity through Discourse : Poverty and the Culture of Deliberation in Indian Village Democracies(2009-05-01)Employing a view of culture as a communicative phenomenon involving discursive engagement, which is deeply influenced by social and economic inequalities, the authors argue that the struggle to break free of poverty is as much a cultural process as it is political and economic. In this paper, they analyze important examples of discursive spaces - public meetings in Indian village democracies (gram sabhas), where villagers make important decisions about budgetary allocations for village development and the selection of beneficiaries for anti-poverty programs. They examine 290 transcripts of gram sabhas from South India to demonstrate how they create a culture of civic/political engagement among poor people, and how definitions of poverty and beneficiary-selection criteria are understood and interrogated within them. Through this examination, they highlight the process by which gram sabhas facilitate the acquisition of crucial cultural capabilities such as discursive skills and civic agency by poor and disadvantaged groups. They illustrate how the poor and socially marginalized deploy these discursive skills in a resource-scarce and socially stratified environment in making material and non-material demands in their search for dignity. The intersection of poverty, culture, and deliberative democracy is a topic of broad relevance because it sheds light on cultural processes that can be influenced by public action in a manner that helps improve the voice and agency of the poor.Publication Procurement Monitoring and Social Accountability(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009)The devolution of procurement responsibilities to local levels of government is increasingly occurring across South Asia. This trend is significant because increasingly localized decision-making better enables communities to hold government authorities accountable for the effectiveness of public spending, which can lead to various improved development outcomes, such as improvements in quality of service delivery; greater empowerment and understanding by end-users services supplied through public procurement processes; and improved oversight and accountability of service delivery agencies. The objective of this report is to set out an overview of the strategic approach developed by World Bank Institute (WBI) as a component of the Norwegian governance trust fund (NTF) program `procurement and service delivery: establishing effective collaboration between government and beneficiaries on monitoring procurement outcomes`. WBI received funds under the NTF to facilitate the development of context and audience-specific knowledge products by recognized practitioners and civil society organizations in South Asia as part of a broader effort to create a practical curriculum on social accountability in procurement.Publication The Importance of Stakeholder Ownership for Capacity Development Results(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-05)Capacity development is widely accepted as critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and other development outcomes, but the results from capacity development initiatives have often been disappointing. This challenge signifies the urgent need to advance capacity development knowledge and practice. As a contribution to addressing this challenge, the World Bank Institute (WBI) has developed a strategic, country-led and approach to results focused capacity development, which involves collective action across society and an emphasis throughout on achieving results. The conceptual framework and processes for WBI’s approach are captured in the Capacity Development and Results Framework (CDRF) (Otoo, Agapitova and Behrens 2009). The focus of this paper is on the strength of stakeholder ownership. Drawing on a review of recent studies, literature and relevant examples, this paper seeks to deepen understanding of the importance of stakeholder ownership and its contributing institutional characteristics to achieving development goals. The paper identifies future collaborative research that would shed light on which change strategies are likely to be most effective in strengthening stakeholder ownership in different contexts.Publication Increasing Social Inclusion through Social Guarantees : A Policy Note(Washington, DC, 2007-09-24)This policy note seeks to contribute to the consideration of social guarantees as tools for the design and/or monitoring of social policy and service delivery. It proposes a range of options to improve the delivery of and access to social services that can further social inclusion and democratic governance. The application of a social guarantee framework to social policy could significantly enhance the effectiveness of policy implementation in Latin America and the Caribbean, and can have a direct and positive impact on poor and vulnerable groups. This policy note is not intended as a blueprint for developing a social guarantee approach to social policy design and service delivery. Rather, it discusses the principles that could guide such undertaking, and it provides examples of how different countries have developed and implemented social programs using this approach. Social policy plays a critical role in promoting inclusion and strengthening democratic governance. As such, it contributes to the realization of normative human rights commitments. This document suggests that a social guarantee approach can be used to strengthen the delivery and monitoring of social programs. It highlights the importance of understanding and building upon the existing socio-political context of each country. This policy notes suggests that a system of social guarantees provides a way of addressing these concerns by enabling the state to provide: a) clarity of minimum standards, which can be revised on an ongoing basis; b) a framework for equity between those who receive services from different providers (public, private, voluntary); c) a framework for redress if minimum standards are not met; and d) a process for citizen participation in public and private provision.Publication How, When and Why to Use Demand-Side Governance Approaches in Projects(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012)This note offers a process-oriented guide to strengthening demand-side governance approaches in World Bank projects with a step-by-step approach for determining how demand for good governance (DFGG) tools and approaches can be applied to different types of Bank-funded projects. The objective of this note is to help task teams anticipate demand-side governance considerations early in the project preparation process, identify potential entry points for introducing DFGG tools to address these considerations, provide guidance on selecting DFGG tools which will improve governance, transparency and service delivery, assist borrowers to introduce DFGG tools in Bank projects, and to measure their impact. The core guidance is presented in the form of a simple five-step process for determining activity in a given project context. The annexes contain a glossary of DFGG tools, checklists, website links and other resources for task teams that will assist them in introducing and deepening DFGG work in Bank projects.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03-01)This primer responds to central banks’ growing demand for knowledge on social, governance, and environmental considerations (ESG) in the investment process. This area has gained traction in the last two decades. More recently, central banks’ interest in ESG has increased, but much of the information available is aimed at investors with different investment objectives and broadly diversified portfolios. The authors fill that information gap by reviewing the definitions of ESG and the main ESG investment approaches, including their applicability to asset classes. The authors then examine how foreign reserve managers can apply ESG investing in their reserve management operations. The authors find limited scope for implementing ESG strategies in reserve management, given that most central banks still invest primarily in sovereign bonds of major economies. Yet, the authors also identify opportunities and critical considerations for central banks interested in implementing ESG investing in their reserve management operations.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-18)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures the time container ships spend in port, making it an important point of reference for stakeholders in the global economy. These stakeholders include port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, and other public and private players in trade and logistics. The index highlights where vessel time in container ports could be improved. Streamlining these processes would benefit all parties involved, including shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. This fourth edition of the CPPI relies on data from 405 container ports with at least 24 container ship port calls in the calendar year 2023. As in earlier editions of the CPPI, the ranking employs two different methodological approaches: an administrative (technical) approach and a statistical approach (using matrix factorization). Combining these two approaches ensures that the overall ranking of container ports reflects actual port performance as closely as possible while also being statistically robust. The CPPI methodology assesses the sequential steps of a container ship port call. ‘Total port hours’ refers to the total time elapsed from the moment a ship arrives at the port until the vessel leaves the berth after completing its cargo operations. The CPPI uses time as an indicator because time is very important to shipping lines, ports, and the entire logistics chain. However, time, as captured by the CPPI, is not the only way to measure port efficiency, so it does not tell the entire story of a port’s performance. Factors that can influence the time vessels spend in ports can be location-specific and under the port’s control (endogenous) or external and beyond the control of the port (exogenous). The CPPI measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data only, which do not reveal the underlying factors or root causes of extended port times. A detailed port-specific diagnostic would be required to assess the contribution of underlying factors to the time a vessel spends in port. A very low ranking or a significant change in ranking may warrant special attention, for which the World Bank generally recommends a detailed diagnostic.