Return and Presence: How International Study Shapes Civic Contribution across Political Contexts

• In Event: International Student Mobility and Societal Impact: Reframing the Civic, Political, and Institutional Reach of Global Higher Education

Proposal

International education is not simply a private good. It alters how individuals relate to the world and, upon return, to their societies. This paper draws on a cross-regional study of returnees who studied abroad and went on to contribute to public life in contexts ranging from consolidated democracies to politically restrictive settings. It explores how international study reshapes civic stance and expands the possibilities for democratic participation.
This study builds on prior work showing that international education can yield political as well as personal consequences. Spilimbergo (2009) finds that returnees educated in democratic countries are significantly more likely to support democratic outcomes at home. Atkinson (2010) links US-hosted exchange programmes with measurable gains in civil liberties and human rights. Chankseliani (2018) demonstrates that post-Soviet states sending students to Western campuses show stronger democratic outcomes than those oriented toward Moscow. While these studies offer compelling evidence of an association between student mobility and political change, they leave open how such transformations occur. This paper contributes a complementary account by drawing on the concept of presence as developed in the author’s recent work: the idea that returnees become morally and intellectually available to their context in new ways, responding to what they have come to see with stance, judgement, and public engagement.
The analysis is based on 104 interviews with individuals who pursued international higher education and returned to work in law, education, civil society, politics, media, and public administration. Of these, 51 returned to politically restrictive or hybrid contexts, and 53 to democratic settings. Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling, with selection focused on those whose work had systemic reach. The sample spans more than 30 countries, with the majority having studied in the US or UK, and others educated in Russia, India, Australia, and beyond.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted in English or participants’ preferred language. Transcripts were thematically analysed using a coding frame informed by critical realism, transformative learning theory, and transnationalism. Deductive codes were refined inductively, with intercoder checks and structured discussion ensuring consistency.
Returnees described shifts in how they understood responsibility, participation, and public life. These shifts often emerged through contrast and dislocation, by encountering different civic expectations abroad and seeing familiar institutions anew. Some engaged in institutional reform. Others built civic infrastructures, introduced new vocabularies, or shifted public narratives. Across political contexts, they enacted what this study terms civic translation: the situated adaptation of civic and democratic commitments in forms that resonate locally and are sustained. Their efforts reflected a shared stance, a willingness to act publicly, even when institutional openings were narrow or eroding, and to hold open space of civic possibility.
This paper does not claim that international education guarantees civic contribution. But it shows that, when combined with reflexive agency and sustained through presence, international study can generate not only knowledge, but the moral and strategic capacities needed for civic life. At a time when both democracy and international student mobility are under renewed pressure, understanding these contributions is both urgent and necessary.

Author

• Maia Chankseliani, University of Oxford