Education alone does not support democracy, but the right educational content might

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VI)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Meaning and significance of education reinterpreted in new societal contexts

Proposal

Education alone does not translate into greater support for democracy. In fact, many of the European countries were populist politics and strongmen rulers have gained ground have seen their level levels of education rise significantly in the past two decades. Hungary, to continue the case, is one of the European countries that witnessed a sharp increase in education levels in the past two decades, as revealed by UNDP Education Index (stronger education improvements in the same timeframe being registered only in Croatia, Cyprus, Germany and UK). Young people in all European countries are far better educated than their parents were, that includes Poland, Italy, Hungary and Austria were large swaths of the electorate in recent years elections favored more populist programs and less open society and democratic alternatives. The discussion needs both macro and micro level data and historical-development arguments. The link between education and democracy still matters a great deal in human society. But the age-old hope that education would create by itself a more fair, open and democratic society looks overblown. Empirical data suggest education is a necessary but insufficient condition for open societies to thrive. Differing historical experiences of states have bearing in making them susceptible to authoritarian movements.

Authors

• Cosmin Marian, Department of Political Science Babes-Bolyai University, Romania

• Jeffrey Sommers, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Visiting Professor, the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga