The Effect of Education on Civic and Political Engagement in Nonconsolidated Democracies: Evidence from Nigeria
利用尼日利亚1976年普及小学教育改革，发现教育显著提升了公民的政治关注度、投票率和社区参与，尤其在少数群体和分裂地区效果更大，且未增加政治暴力支持。
Developing democracies are experiencing unprecedented increases in primary and secondary schooling. To identify education's long-run political effects, we use a difference-in-differences design that leverages variation across local government areas and gender in the intensity of Nigeria's 1976 universal primary education reform—one of Africa's largest ever educational expansions—to instrument for education. We find large increases in basic civic and political engagement: better educated citizens are more attentive to politics, more likely to vote, and more involved in community associations. The effects are largest among minority groups and in fractionalized areas, without increasing support for political violence or own-group identification.