Autocrats and Universities

• In Event: Education and State Building

Abstract

Why do some autocrats allow for autonomous university systems to emerge while others establish direct political control over tertiary education? Why do some authoritarian regimes restrict access to higher education to regime insiders, while others are more inclusive? Higher education systems vary quite dramatically across authoritarian systems and over time. We develop a novel theoretical argument that identifies conditions under which authoritarian leaders opt for more or less direct political control of universities and varying degrees of social exclusion. On the one hand, dictators desire certain benefits associated with effective higher education systems: scientific innovation and economic growth, the training of competent civil servants, and the development of legitimizing political ideologies. On the other hand, autocrats also fear certain risks attached to higher education: innovations that threaten economic incumbents, the spread of liberal values, the questioning of regime legitimacy, and the increase in collective action potential of opposition elites. We argue that when the demand for economic innovation is high and the social order supporting the regime is strong, dictators are willing to allow for academic autonomy in universities while limiting the access of non-elites. When the social order is weak and authoritarian regimes are new and insecure, they prioritize the fabrication of regime loyalty over scientific innovation but allow access to higher education for non-elites. Predatory regimes that have no desire for economic innovation and rely on an exclusionary social order to sustain the regime, will make minimal investments into higher education, limit academic autonomy, and restrict access to elites only. We test several observable implications of this argument using new data on the creation of universities around the world from 1800-2015. We complement our quantitative analyses with illustrative case studies of Imperial and East Germany.

Authors

• Jan Henryk Pierskalla, Ohio State University

• Florian Hollenbach, Texas A&M University