As Andrew Sullivan has chronicled, it has been a couple of exciting weeks for those who hope technology will unleash a wave of democratization. Texts, tweets and technorati have surely played a role. At the same time, Marx predicted the railroad would lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat, and we all know how that ended.
Another factor that has clearly influenced events is the spread of education –in particular the number of college students. This recent paper suggests that educated people (Socrates aside) are far more likely to support democracy. But again, that may not be the full story. This paper suggests that there is no link between growing education rates and transition to democracy. Given the rapid global advance in school enrollments, alongside growth in access to communications technologies, that suggests we may see more and more dissatisfied democrats living in authoritarian regimes. And falling sales of hemlock.
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June 30th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
[...] Mutiny on the Bounty, Captain Queeg (played in the film version of the story by Humphrey Bogart) Better Socrates Satisfied? - fistfulofeuros.net 06/30/2009 As Andrew Sullivan has chronicled, it has been a couple of exciting [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
There does need to be a distinction between styles of education.
A person who’s received all of their schooling through an institution like the Catholic Church or one of the myriad Islamic schools throughout the middle east will likely have a profoundly different view of democracy than someone who went to Northwestern.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Honduras