The Defanging Effect of Education and Autocratic Survival

Raouf Boucekkine (), Rodolphe Desbordes () and Paolo Melindi-Ghidi ()
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Raouf Boucekkine: AMU - Aix Marseille Université, AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Rodolphe Desbordes: SKEMA Business School, UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur
Paolo Melindi-Ghidi: AMU - Aix Marseille Université, AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The modernisation theory of regime change is often perceived to be a murky paradigm, lacking theoretical or empirical foundations. In response, we clarify the links between education and regime change.More specifically, we propose that education contributes indirectly to the collapse of autocratic regimes because educated people engage in non-violent (civil) resistance that reduces the effectiveness of the security apparatus. We empirically test the validity of this 'defanging effect' of education. We indeed find that the combination of high autocracy and high education levels tends to trigger non-violent campaigns, which in turn increases the likelihood of a regime change, likely to be associated with political liberalisation.

Keywords: regime change; modernisation; education; democratisation; civil resistance; autocracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05425375v1
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Published in World Development, In press

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05425375

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