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When are mass protest movements able to overthrow authoritarian regimes and promote democratic transitions? This article considers whether socially diverse protest movements are more conducive to democratization than movements restricted to one or a few social groups. Coalitions across social groups should impose higher costs on authoritarian regimes through access to a wide range of resources, strategies and sources of leverage. Heterogenous protest coalitions are also more likely to socially overlap with regime supporters and the security forces, which should encourage regime splits and defections. But, diverse protest movements may also be more vulnerable to fragmentation and in-fighting, which may particularly threaten prospects of democracy in the aftermath of an authoritarian regime breakdown. Analyzing new global data mapping the social group composition of anti-regime protest campaigns from 1900 to 2013, the article finds consistent evidence that socially diverse protest movements are more likely to overthrow authoritarian regimes, and this is not driven by protest size. Socially diverse movements are also more likely to end in the short- and long-run establishment of more democratic institutions, suggesting that heterogenous protest movements' potential for bringing about democracy is more promising than expected. These findings speak to the importance of securing broad and not only large mass movements to promote democracy.

This study investigates whether protest movements consisting of students and educated protesters are more likely to (a) use nonviolent rather than violent resistance and (b) successfully reach their goals. Extant literature suggests that education is negatively linked to violent conflict, and the commonly assumed mechanism is that educated groups are less likely to resort to violence. Moreover, many argue that education is a force for regime change and democratization, by inducing successful protest movements. This article is the first to systematically test implications of these mechanisms at the protest level. The empirical analysis builds on original data on the educational background of participants in all protest campaigns aiming for regime change from 1900 to 2006 identified in the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes Dataset 1.0. I find robust evidence that protest movements with a high degree of involvement by students and graduates are more likely to turn nonviolent. Moreover, there is some (although weaker) evidence that these movements are more likely to achieve their goals, but only due to their nonviolent dispositions. This adds to the literature explaining why some movements resort to nonviolence (and succeed), by establishing that the identity and socioeconomic background of protesters matter.

We investigate whether female political empowerment is conducive to civil peace, drawing on global data on female political empowerment over a 200-year period, from the Varieties of Democracy database. We augment previous research by expanding the temporal scope, looking at a novel inventory of female political empowerment measures, attending to reverse-causality and omitted variable issues, and separating between relevant causal mechanisms. We find a strong link between female political empowerment and civil peace, which is particularly pronounced in the twentieth century. We find evidence that this relationship is driven both by women's political participation—particularly the bottom-up political participation of women, e.g., in civil society—and the culture that conduces it. This is the strongest evidence to date that there is a robust link between female political empowerment and civil peace, stemming from both institutional and cultural mechanisms.

History suggests universities are hotbeds of political protest. However, the generality and causal nature of this relationship has never been quantified. This article investigates whether universities give rise to political protest, drawing on geocoded information on the location and characteristics of universities and protest events in the 1991–2016 period, at the subnational level in 62 countries in Africa and Central America. Our analysis indicates that university establishments increase protest. We use a difference-in-differences and fixed-effect framework leveraging the temporal variation in universities within subnational grid-cells to estimate the effect of universities on protest. Our analysis indicates that localities with increases in number of universities experience more protest. We suggest a causal interpretation, after performing different tests to evaluate whether this reflects confounding trends specific to locations that establish universities, finding no support for this. We also provide descriptive evidence on the nature of university-related protests, showing that they are more likely to emerge in dictatorships and that protests in university locations are more likely to concern democracy and human rights. These findings yield important general insights into universities' role as drivers of contentious collective action.

History suggests universities are hotbeds of political protest. However, the generality and causal nature of this relationship has never been quantified. This article investigates whether universities give rise to political protest, drawing on geocoded information on the location and characteristics of universities and protest events in the 1991–2016 period, at the subnational level in 62 countries in Africa and Central America. Our analysis indicates that university establishments increase protest. We use a difference-in-differences and fixed-effect framework leveraging the temporal variation in universities within subnational grid-cells to estimate the effect of universities on protest. Our analysis indicates that localities with increases in number of universities experience more protest. We suggest a causal interpretation, after performing different tests to evaluate whether this reflects confounding trends specific to locations that establish universities, finding no support for this. We also provide descriptive evidence on the nature of university-related protests, showing that they are more likely to emerge in dictatorships and that protests in university locations are more likely to concern democracy and human rights. These findings yield important general insights into universities' role as drivers of contentious collective action.

Does a more educated population spur regime-challenging mass protest? It is commonly argued that educated individuals are more likely to collectively challenge governments through protests and that this may explain why education is associated with democratization. While many studies have investigated education's effect on conventional political participation (voting, petitioning, etc.), it is not known whether education levels affect contentious mass protest. This article argues that education increases the frequency of mass protest, by alleviating collective-action problems and motivating mass opposition, particularly in autocracies. These links are investigated at the subnational level in Africa, by mapping over 600,000 survey respondents to spatialized protest-event data. We present evidence that areas with more educated populations have higher levels of protest activity, and we find mixed evidence consistent with both opportunity- and grievance-related mechanisms driving this relationship. We proceed to identify the causal effect of education by using the location of colonial-era Christian missions to instrument for local education levels.

Does a more educated population spur regime-challenging mass protest? It is commonly argued that educated individuals are more likely to collectively challenge governments through protests and that this may explain why education is associated with democratization. While many studies have investigated education's effect on conventional political participation (voting, petitioning, etc.), it is not known whether education levels affect contentious mass protest. This article argues that education increases the frequency of mass protest, by alleviating collective-action problems and motivating mass opposition, particularly in autocracies. These links are investigated at the subnational level in Africa, by mapping over 600,000 survey respondents to spatialized protest-event data. We present evidence that areas with more educated populations have higher levels of protest activity, and we find mixed evidence consistent with both opportunity- and grievance-related mechanisms driving this relationship. We proceed to identify the causal effect of education by using the location of colonial-era Christian missions to instrument for local education levels.

We investigate whether democracy enhances the skills and knowledge of citizens through improving education quality. This, in turn, could have ramifications for other development outcomes such as economic growth. We offer the first systematic cross-national study on democracy and education quality. Democracy is widely regarded as superior to autocracy in terms of providing access to education, and several studies find that democracy enhances educational enrollment and years of schooling. Yet, we do not know whether democracies provide better education. We argue that democracies should not too readily be expected to outperform autocracies on education quality. First, it is inherently difficult to implement quality-enhancing education reforms, even for well-intentioned (democratic and autocratic) governments with ample resources. Second, education quality is less visible to voters than, e.g., expanding education enrollment, making quality-enhancing policies a less attractive option for office-seeking democratic politicians. We employ a recent dataset comparing international student tests for 128 countries, from 1965 onward. While democracies typically provide "more" education than autocracies, we find no systematic evidence that democracies offer better education. The result is very robust and holds in both cross-section and panel specifications. The null-relationship is not explained simply by democracies providing education access to more (and different types of) children than autocracies, and it appears both in rich and poor and in low- and high-capacity states. We also present relevant nuances: for instance, autocracies display more variation in education quality outcomes than democracies, and we find some evidence that democracy may be associated, more specifically, with better reading skills. In sum, this study provides new insights to the democracy and education literature, where extant studies often report strong links between democracy and various education outcomes not directly related to education quality, and informs literatures linking democracy to development outcomes such as growth via effects on human capital.

The notion that cultural characteristics influence political regimes remains popular, despite mixed supporting evidence. In particular, democracy is argued to emerge and thrive in countries where liberal or freedom-oriented values (so-called self-expression values) are widespread. Inglehart and Welzel, for instance, report such an effect, mainly drawing inferences from cross-country comparisons. Yet cross-country correlations between self-expression values and democracy could stem from different processes. Reinvestigating this relationship, this article finds no empirical support when employing models accounting for sample-selection bias, country-specific effects and the endogeneity of values to democracy. Self-expression values do not enhance democracy levels or democratization chances, and neither do they stabilize existing democracies. In contrast, this study finds indications that a country's experience with democracy enhances self-expression values.