Nation-Building and Education

Abstract

Nations stay together when citizens share enough values and preferences and can communicate with each other. Democracies and dictatorships have different incentives when it comes to choosing how much and by what means to homogenize the population, i.e. "to build a nation". We study and compare nation-building policies under the transition from dictatorship to democracy in a model where the location and type of government and the borders of the country are endogenous. We find that the threat of democratization provides the strongest incentive to homogenize. We focus upon a specific nation-building policy: the provision of mass primary education. As a motivation, we offer historical discussions of several episodes in the nineteenth century and suggestive correlations for a large sample of countries over the 1925-2014 period.

Culture and Institutions

“…To reach their conclusions, the authors use a Generalized Method of Moments framework that allows them to obtain consistent estimates when culture is endogenous and labor-market outcomes persist over time. They use religious beliefs as 77 This result is consistent with models of country formation and geographical and cultural distance from the capital (Alesina and Spolaore, 2004;Alesina and Reich, 2013). predetermined variables in the GMM framework, and their lagged values as an instrument.…”

Melting pot or salad bowl: the formation of heterogeneous communities

“…Policy can influence this by reducing the costs of switching culture for at least some minority individuals, thus breaking down the segregation equilibrium. Schooling policy provides an example of this, where the teaching of national values to the children of immigrants makes it easier for them to integrate with natives, thus making it harder for their parents to remain segregated (see Alesina and Reich (2015), Bandiera et al (2015) and references therein). Of course, the costs of switching culture and the ubiquity of cultural and religious practices in daily life could be influenced not only by governments by also by individuals and groups.…”

What is European Integration Really About? A Political Guide for Economists

“…Historically, nation-building and attempts to "homogenize" populations were implemented by rulers of undemocratic societies who had an interest at reducing heterogeneity costs in order to maximize their own rents (Alesina and Spolaore 2003, pp. 76-78) or pursue their own preferences (Alesina and Reich 2013). Realistic supporters of European integration understand that convergence of political preferences through reduction of linguistic and cultural barriers, if it is going to occur at all, will be a slow and gradual process, which should take place naturally and consensually.…”