Bringing Down the Educational Wall
Political Regimes, Ideology, and the Expansion of Education

The book studies how democracy and the ideology of dictatorships condition the effects of economic development and inequality on the expansion of education.

Dulce Manzano (Author)

9781107024540, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 June 2017

276 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 1.9 cm, 0.53 kg

'What is the effect of political institutions on the well-being of citizens, especially their educational advancement? To answer this question, Manzano distinguishes – both theoretically and empirically – between left- and right-wing dictatorships. She convincingly shows that for much of the post-World War II period, left-wing dictatorships have done more to expand education than either their right-wing counterparts or democracies. Through rigorous theorizing and care data analysis, Manzano's work is a major contribution to both the comparative study of autocracies and the political economy of redistribution.' Jennifer Gandhi, Emory University, Atlanta

Bringing Down the Educational Wall studies the causes of educational expansion in a global sample of developing and developed countries from 1960 to 2005. The book explores how the interaction between the economic context of nations (economic development and inequality) and political factors (the type of political regime and the ideology of dictatorships) influences countries' educational outcomes. The book's main contributions are the exploration of ideological differences between autocratic regimes and the tracing of changes in different parts of the income distribution, which accounts for education expanding to broad sectors of the population. Bringing Down the Educational Wall introduces a new database on the ideology of dictatorships and uses quantitative methods and case analyses to test its theoretical arguments. This work will help students in comparative politics and political economy courses to develop their understanding of redistributive policies and the effects of political factors on the expansion of education.

1. Introduction
2. The institutional link
3. Tracing the impact of political regimes
4. The ideology of dictatorships
5. Political regimes, economic development and the expansion of education
6. Political regimes and education policies. Case analysis
7. The impact of inequality on education
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]