When Education Leads to Deliberate Disengagement Under Authoritarian Rule: CID Faculty Research Insights

This paper, written by CID Faculty Affiliate Kevin Croke and co-authors, challenges the widely held belief that education consistently increases political participation. Drawing on a natural experiment in Zimbabwe, an archetypal electoral authoritarian regime, the authors demonstrate that more educated citizens are, paradoxically, less likely to engage in political activities. They attribute this to deliberate disengagement: a strategic decision by educated individuals to avoid legitimizing an unresponsive and coercive regime. 

This research revises a core assumption in political science: that rising education levels naturally promote political engagement. By showing that educated individuals may withdraw from participation in authoritarian settings, the study highlights that engagement depends not only on capacity, but also on the perceived legitimacy and competitiveness of political institutions. This redefinition has major implications for understanding civic behavior under authoritarian rule. 

The findings also reshape expectations about regime resilience and democratic transitions. Traditional modernization theory predicts that education fosters liberalization. But this work shows that authoritarian regimes can remain stable, even amid expanding education, if political competition remains constrained. Education can create critically minded, pro-democratic citizens who, instead of resisting openly, choose strategic nonparticipation when elections are seen as hollow. 

Finally, the study speaks to global debates about how authoritarian regimes adapt to modernity. As many states combine formal democratic institutions with authoritarian control, understanding how citizens navigate this ambiguity is crucial. The concept of deliberate disengagement helps explain why autocratic regimes often retain high turnout and apparent stability despite rising education and frustration. It also highlights the limits of using participation metrics alone to assess democratic health. Ultimately, the research reminds us that participation is not always a signal of empowerment—and that silence, in some contexts, is a deeply political act.