Democracy and Education in twentieth‐century Latin America

Abstract

Do democratic electoral systems strengthen a country's outcomes in education? Does the degree of inclusiveness of a democratic system matter? This article offers evidence that political competition and the inclusion of marginalized populations in electoral systems transformed education over an 80-year period in Latin America. It finds that democracy has a positive effect on education enrollment and illustrates how current work on democracy and development has overlooked important democratic subcomponents, specifically, who votes and how. Our results deepen current work on democracy, operationalizing the impact of electoral expansion in comparative analysis and showing how democracies respond to specific education demands.

On Education and Democratic Preferences

“…In particular, Eterovic and Sweet (2014) use a cliometric approach to show how democracies respond to specific education demands and how education reinforces democratic electoral systems in Latin America. These researchers show that the degree of inclusiveness of a democratic system matter and offer evidence that education and inclusion of marginalized populations in electoral systems is correlated over an 80-year period in the region (Eterovic and Sweet, 2014). We provide additional formal evidence to at least partially address endogeneity in Table 8, where we present our findings using instrumental variables (IV).…”

“…Interestingly, our work is consistent with recent economic history research on democracy and education for Latin America that points toward a causality that goes from education to democracy. In particular, Eterovic and Sweet () use a cliometric approach to show how democracies respond to specific education demands and how education reinforces democratic electoral systems in Latin America. These researchers show that the degree of inclusiveness of a democratic system matter and offer evidence that education and inclusion of marginalized populations in electoral systems is correlated over an 80‐year period in the region (Eterovic and Sweet, ).…”

Electoral Democracy and Human Development

“…Such policies include education (Ansell 2010;Eterovic & Sweet 2014;Gallego 2010) -especially primary education (Brown 1999;Brown & Hunter 2004;Stasavage 2005) -and infrastructure, insofar as projects are focused on the needs of the masses (e.g., sanitation and clean water) rather than on privileged urban clienteles (e.g., hospitals) (Besley & Kudamatsu 2006). Some studies also find that democracy enhances aggregate levels of social spending and total public sector size (Boix 2001;Brown & Hunter 1999;Huber, Mustillo & Stephens 2008;Lee 2005;but, see Mulligan et al 2003), which (with some reservations) can be anticipated to correlate with the overall level of redistribution or of public goods.…”

“…Many studies report a causal connection between democracy and improved quality of life (Altman & Castiglioni 2009;Besley & Kudamatsu 2006;Blaydes & Kayser 2011;Brown 1999;Brown & Hunter 1999Deacon 2009;Eterovic & Sweet 2014;Gerring et al 2012;Ghobarah, Huth & Russett 2004;Haggard & Kaufman 2008;Hanson 2015;Kaufman & Segura-Ubiergo 2001;Lake & Baum 2001;Lindert 2004: chs 15-17;McGuire 2013;Muntaner et al 2011;Przeworski et al 2000;Stasavage 2005;Zweifel & Navia 2003).…”

Which Religions Still Affect Schooling? A Study of 143 Countries

“…To start with, we control for the share of public spending on education in GDP (e.g., Heylen andPozzi 2007, Castelló-Climent andHidalgo-Cabrillana 2012). Furthermore, we control for political rights and civil liberties and, in one robustness check, alternatively for the degree of autocracy/democracy (e.g., Lake and Baum 2001, Rudra and Haggard 2005, Eterovic and Sweet 2014. In another robustness check, we additionally control for religious pluralism (e.g., Alesina et al 2003, Gruber 2005.…”