The Impact of Academic Freedom on Democracy in Africa

Abstract

Shared experiences but diversified developments make Africa an interesting region in which to investigate the impact of education on democracy, and the role of academic freedom in this impact. As building expertise takes time, we focus on the causality between past experience of academic freedom and electoral democracy. Our theory is that independent experts advocating free and fair elections are acclaimed, which makes rigging elections a costly strategy for rulers. Using the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) index of Academic Freedom, and the Generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to estimate a dynamic panel model, we find a positive impact of preceding academic freedom on the quality of elections after the Post-Cold war democratic transitions. The result is robust when we check reverse causality and country-specific effects such as the initial level of democracy or dependence on oil exportation. The analysis is robust to indicators measuring democracy by accountability of the executive and Polity2 and Freedom House Indices as alternatives to V-Dem measures of democracy. We discuss the observed heterogeneity of countries showing a counterintuitive relationship. The study highlights the significance of scholars as a channel through which education supports democracy.