Does Private Schooling Affect National Stability?

ABSTRACT

I employ a year and country-level fixed-effects analytical technique to examine how private schooling could impact national stability using five different measures. I examine 177 different countries across the globe from 1999 to 2014. Most importantly, this technique allows me to conduct a quasi-experimental analysis by controlling for otherwise unobservable and relatively time-invariant characteristics of nation-states such as culture, language, religiosity, and racial diversity. I do not find that contemporaneous changes in private schooling influence perceived control of corruption, stability, or rule of law within a nation-state. Moreover, I do not find any evidence indicating that private schooling fluctuations influence actual terrorist activity or the likelihood of a coup d’état within a country. However, I find evidence indicating that private schooling improves perceived control of corruption and rule of law when students become adults.

KEYWORDS:

• civic values
• coup d’état
• democratic education
• private school
• school choice
• terrorism

Acknowledgments

The content of the report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the University of Arkansas or the Cato Institute.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. School Choice in America. EdChoice. https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/school-choice-in-america/

2. State superintendent says nothing in voucher law prevents “school of terror.” Retrieved from http://www.wect.com/story/24154853/state-superintendent-says-nothing-in-voucher-law-prevents-establishing-school-of-terror

3. School vouchers don’t just undermine public schools, they undermine our democracy. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-edelman-weingarten-school-vouchers-20170531-story.html

4. The World Bank. Percentage of enrollment in primary education in private institutions. Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.PRIV.ZS

5. UN Data. Private enrollment as percentage of total enrollment. Retrieved from http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=UNESCO&f=series%3APRP_1

6. Percentage of private enrollment. UNESCO. Retrieved from http://uis.unesco.org/glossary

7. Glossary. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/glossary.asp

8. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=worldwide-governance-indicators

9. https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/

10. http://www.clinecenter.illinois.edu/data/speed/coupdata/

11. The inclusion of squared terms does not alter the overall results.