Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/230570 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Queen’s Economics Department Working Paper No. 1417
Publisher: 
Queen's University, Department of Economics, Kingston (Ontario)
Abstract: 
After introducing a measure for educational polarization (EduPol ), this paper presents a theoretical framework to understand whether and how EduPol may affect the contest for power in society. The model suggests that societies with high degrees of EduPol (i.e., substantial shares with either no or university-level education) are systematically more prone to civil unrest. We test this prediction on four measures of civil unrest: Political instability, domestic terrorism, civil conflict, and civil war. Our empirical estimations produce evidence consistent with this hypothesis as all four phenomena are positively associated with EduPol at the beginning of the respective period, exhibiting meaningful magnitudes. These results prevail when accounting for (i) potentially confounding factors, (ii) country- and time-fixed effects, (iii) economic inequality, (iv) ethnic and religious polarization and fractionalization, and (v) numerous alternative estimations and outcome variables.
Subjects: 
Civil conflict
civil unrest
civil war
Education polarization
Peace economics
JEL: 
D74
I24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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