{"id":3864,"date":"2013-06-16T17:20:52","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T16:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=3864"},"modified":"2013-06-16T17:20:52","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T16:20:52","slug":"relevance-of-education-and-intelligence-for-the-political-development-of-nations-democracy-rule-of-law-and-political-liberty-rindermann-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2013\/06\/relevance-of-education-and-intelligence-for-the-political-development-of-nations-democracy-rule-of-law-and-political-liberty-rindermann-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations: Democracy, rule of law and political liberty (Rindermann 2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations Democracy, rule of law and political liberty<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two relevant effects of education and cognitive<\/span><\/p>\n

ability on politics could be distinguished: a cognitive<\/span><\/p>\n

effect (competence to make rational choices, better<\/span><\/p>\n

information processing etc.) and an ethical effect<\/span><\/p>\n

(support of democratic values, freedom, human rights<\/span><\/p>\n

etc.), which itself depends on cognitive ability (cogni-<\/span><\/p>\n

tive development being a prerequisite for moral<\/span><\/p>\n

development) and probably the other way round (a<\/span><\/p>\n

willingness to think and learn furthers cognitive<\/span><\/p>\n

competences).<\/span><\/p>\n

A similar position is held by the OECD (2000),<\/span><\/p>\n

which postulates an influence of education on the qu-<\/span><\/p>\n

ality of voting decisions and intensity of political<\/span><\/p>\n

participation: \u201cPeople with more schooling are likely<\/span><\/p>\n

to make more informed choices when voting and to<\/span><\/p>\n

participate more actively in their communities.\u201d (p. 81)<\/span><\/p>\n

Simpson (1997) stressed not only the relevance of<\/span><\/p>\n

education, but pointed to cognitive abilities as the cen-<\/span><\/p>\n

tral mechanism (\u201cinformation-processing-capacity\u201d or<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201ccognitive capacity\u201d; p. 157): \u201cDemocracy depends on a<\/span><\/p>\n

public who can process complex information and<\/span><\/p>\n

actively participate in politics\u201d (similarly, see Friedman,<\/span><\/p>\n

1962).<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the individual level, Milligan, Moretti and<\/span><\/p>\n

Oreopoulos (2004) support the education-and-ability-<\/span><\/p>\n

further-political-participation-thesis: The findings show<\/span><\/p>\n

that education supports democracy both by increasing<\/span><\/p>\n

the quantity of citizens’ involvement in the electoral<\/span><\/p>\n

process (increased probability of voting) as well as the<\/span><\/p>\n

quality of that involvement (increased information on<\/span><\/p>\n

politics). In the US, education increases registration and<\/span><\/p>\n

by this voting. In the US and in the UK educated people<\/span><\/p>\n

follow more politics on TV and in newspapers, attend<\/span><\/p>\n

political meetings, discuss political matters and try to<\/span><\/p>\n

persuade others, in the US, they even trust more the<\/span><\/p>\n

federal government and people in general and do not<\/span><\/p>\n

believe that \u201cfederal officials are crooked\u201d. Similar<\/span><\/p>\n

results for the US but with different data sets are found<\/span><\/p>\n

by Dee (2004).Educatedpeoplehaveahigher<\/span><\/p>\n

probability of voting, of reading newspapers and<\/span><\/p>\n

support free speech (e.g. for communists, anti-religio-<\/span><\/p>\n

nists, homosexuals, militarists, and racists).<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interesting correlation altho not surprising at all with free speech and intelligence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Intelligence is important for politics not only at the<\/span><\/p>\n

individual level, but also at the macro-social level:<\/span><\/p>\n

intelligence is required for institutionalized political<\/span><\/p>\n

decision-making, effective administration, the legal<\/span><\/p>\n

system, bureaucracy, and economic institutions (\u201cgov-<\/span><\/p>\n

ernment effectiveness\u201d; Kaufmann, 2003). The func-<\/span><\/p>\n

tioning of public institutions per se is a condition for the<\/span><\/p>\n

rule of law. These all are rational institutions that<\/span><\/p>\n

depend on an intelligent culture. And political leader-<\/span><\/p>\n

ship is a cognitively highly demanding task (Suedfeld,<\/span><\/p>\n

Guttieri, & Tetlock, 2003, p. 255). It is therefore not<\/span><\/p>\n

surprising that McDaniel (2006) found a positive cor-<\/span><\/p>\n

relation of r=.34 between cognitive ability and \u201cgovern-<\/span><\/p>\n

ment effectiveness\u201d at the state level in the USA.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last but not least, the intelligence of people and voters<\/span><\/p>\n

on the one hand and the intelligence of leaders and their<\/span><\/p>\n

political success and moral standards in government on<\/span><\/p>\n

the other hand are correlated (Simonton, 1985, 2006a,b).<\/span><\/p>\n

People prefer to elect persons as leaders who are about 20<\/span><\/p>\n

IQ points more intelligent than themselves, but not more<\/span><\/p>\n

(Gibb, 1969), and the intelligence of leaders is correlated<\/span><\/p>\n

with their political success and moral standards. Gener-<\/span><\/p>\n

ally, people prefer persons as leaders who are similar to<\/span><\/p>\n

them (Rushton, 2005).<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The rule of law produces a predictable social world in<\/span><\/p>\n

which problems can be solved and aims be reached by<\/span><\/p>\n

effort, by the use of intelligence and good formal<\/span><\/p>\n

qualifications, rather than by coercion, personal con-<\/span><\/p>\n

nections and bribery. By favoring meritocracy through-<\/span><\/p>\n

out society, and this includes the educational system, the<\/span><\/p>\n

rule of law tends to support the development of<\/span><\/p>\n

cognitive abilities. Under such circumstances learning<\/span><\/p>\n

is a good investment of time and effort. This is<\/span><\/p>\n

demonstrated by two negative examples: in Georgia<\/span><\/p>\n

(Caucasus) students could get in the 1990s a place at<\/span><\/p>\n

university by bribery (Flitner, 2006); and in Brazil about<\/span><\/p>\n

50% of all university theses are said to be plagiarized,<\/span><\/p>\n

either by individual students or with the help of<\/span><\/p>\n

specialized companies that sell the theses to students<\/span><\/p>\n

(Hart, 2006). Such means to success undermine the<\/span><\/p>\n

normative basis of education and cognitive ability and<\/span><\/p>\n

they further other efforts than learning and thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wtf Brazil?!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Democracy in this view and as confirmed by the<\/span><\/p>\n

empirical results is a phenomenon attributable to factors<\/span><\/p>\n

given within a country and depending on its citizens. If<\/span><\/p>\n

these internal conditions are not given, it would be<\/span><\/p>\n

impossible or at least very difficult to import democracy<\/span><\/p>\n

from the outside with the help of armed forces (see<\/span><\/p>\n

experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq and the history of<\/span><\/p>\n

Liberia, which was planned as an institutional copy of<\/span><\/p>\n

the USA). Social and political institutions are not<\/span><\/p>\n

irrelevant, but they depend in their development in the<\/span><\/p>\n

past and in their functionality in the present on the<\/span><\/p>\n

characteristics of the people. Democracy is more a way<\/span><\/p>\n

of living and thinking (see Dewey, 1997\/1916) than a<\/span><\/p>\n

specific attribute of institutions. If institutions in an<\/span><\/p>\n

independent country are missing or faulty, people and<\/span><\/p>\n

their leaders, using their education and abilities, will and<\/span><\/p>\n

can develop them. One important test case of the<\/span><\/p>\n

education-intelligence-furthers-democracy-thesis will<\/span><\/p>\n

be the political development of China during the 21st<\/span><\/p>\n

century. If the positive influence of high cognitive<\/span><\/p>\n

ability on democratization is a general phenomenon,<\/span><\/p>\n

China will become democratic.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let’s see about that prediction. Perhaps China is too big to get easy reforms, similarly to the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations Democracy, rule of law and political liberty     Two relevant effects of education and cognitive ability on politics could be distinguished: a cognitive effect (competence to make rational choices, better information processing etc.) and an ethical effect (support of democratic values, freedom, human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1839,1921],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychometics","category-sociology","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3866,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3864\/revisions\/3866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}