Why Does Democracy Need Education

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Across countries, education and democracy are highly correlated. We motivate
empirically and then model a causal mechanism explaining this correlation. In our
model, schooling teaches people to interact with others and raises the benefits of
civic participation, including voting and organizing.
In the battle between
democracy and dictatorship, democracy has a wide potential base of support but
offers weak incentives to its defenders. Dictatorship provides stronger incentives to
a narrower base. As education raises the benefits of civic engagement, it raises
participation in support of a broad-based regime (democracy) relative to that in
support of a narrow-based regime (dictatorship). This increases the likelihood of
successful democratic revolutions against dictatorships, and reduces that of
successful anti-democratic coups.