Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T21:53:18.096Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democratization and Government Education Provision in East Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Jing Chen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although it is commonly believed that democracy promotes public services such as education, efforts have just started to evaluate empirically how the recent trend of democratization affects education services in the developing world. This article reports on the first regionwide investigation in East Asia. By studying the effects of democracy on multiple education indicators in a time-series-cross-section dataset of eight East Asian countries/political entities, the article examines whether democratic governments increase education spending and access and which social groups are favored in the process. The statistical results, which are corroborated by findings from two case studies, show that democracy plays a progressive role in promoting education spending and school enrollment at the basic level in East Asia.

Keywords

democratizationeducation policyEast Asiaredistributioneducation spendingschool enrollmenterror correction modeltime-series-cross-section analysisTaiwanThailand
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , August 2008 , pp. 175 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

I thank Robert Kaufman, Stephan Haggard, Richard Lau, and Michael Shafer, as well as reviewers and editors of the Journal of East Asian Studies for their extremely helpful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Barak Hoffman, Alex Segura-Ubiergo, David Lehmkuhl, Dennis Quinn, David Brown, Luke Keele, and subscribers of the political methodology list for assistance with data collection and statistical modeling.Google Scholar

1. World Bank, The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy, World Bank Policy Research Report, 1993; Tilak, Jandhyala B. G., Education for Development in Asia (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994); Morris, Paul and Sweeting, Anthony, Education and Development in East Asia (New York: Garland, 1995).Google Scholar

2. Ames, Barry, Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Chan, Steve, “Democracy and Inequality: Tracking Welfare Spending in Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea,” in Midlarsky, Manus I., ed., Inequality and Democracy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Kaufman, Robert and Segura-Ubiergo, Alex, “Globalization, Domestic Politics, and Social Spending in Latin America: A Time-Series Cross-Section Analysis, 1973–97,” World Politics 53 (July 2001): 553–587; Brown, David and Hunter, Wendy, “Democracy and Human Capital Formation: Education Spending in Latin America, 1980–1997,” Comparative Political Studies 37 (September 2004): 842–864; Avelino, George, Brown, David, and Hunter, Wendy, “Globalization, Democracy and Social Spending in Latin America, 1980–1999,” American Journal of Political Science 49 (July 2005): 625–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Brown, and Hunter, , “Democracy and Human Capital Formation”; Stasavage, David, “Democracy and Education Spending in Africa,” American Journal of Political Science 49 (April 2005): 343–358.Google Scholar

4. Brown, David, “Reading, Writing, and Regime Type: Democracy's Impact on Primary School Enrollment,” Political Research Quarterly 52 (December 1999): 681–707; Brown, David, “Democracy and Gender Inequality in Education: A Cross-National Examination,” British Journal of Political Science 34 (January 2004): 137–152; Baum, Matthew and Lake, David, “The Political Economy of Growth: Democracy and Human Capital,” American Journal of Political Science 47 (April 2003): 333–347; Siegle, Joseph, Weinstein, Michael, and Halperin, Morton, “Why Democracies Excel,” Foreign Affairs (September–October 2004); Rudra, Nita and Haggard, Stephan, “Globalization, Democracy and Effective Welfare Spending in the Developing World,” Comparative Political Studies 38 (November 2005): 1015–1049; Stroup, Michael, “Economic Freedom, Democracy and the Quality of Life,” World Development 35, no. 1 (2007): 52–66.Google Scholar

5. Lott, John R. Jr., “Public Schooling, Indoctrination and Totalitarianism,” Journal of Political Economy 107 (December 1999): 127–157, has found a negative effect of democracy on per capita and per student expenditure, whereas Peter Lindert, “Voice and Growth: Was Churchill Right?” Journal of Economic History 63 (June 2003): 315–350, and Rudra, and Haggard, , “Globalization, Democracy,” have found no impact of democracy on education spending.Google Scholar

6. The only statistical study I am aware of is Chan, “Democracy and Inequality,” which covers three countries/political entities in East Asia: Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. Chan studies the effects of democracy on per capita education spending.Google Scholar

7. Brown, David, “Democracy, Authoritarianism and Education Finance in Brazil,” Journal of Latin American Studies 34 (February 2002): 115–141.Google Scholar

8. Hannum, Emily and Buchmann, Claudia, “The Consequences of Global Education Expansion,” Occasional Paper, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Project on Universal Basic and Secondary Education, (Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2003).Google Scholar

9. de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, Morrow, James, Siverson, Randolph, and Smith, Alastair, “Political Institutions, Policy Choice and the Survival of Leaders,” British Journal of Political Science 32 (October 2002): 559–590.Google Scholar

10. Lake, David and Baum, Matthew, “The Invisible Hand of Democracy: Political Control and the Provision of Public Services,” Comparative Political Studies 34 (August 2001): 587–621.Google Scholar

11. UNESCO, World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, April 2000.Google Scholar

12. Wallerstein, Michael and Moene, Karl O., “Earnings Inequality and Welfare Spending: A Disaggregated Analysis,” World Politics 55, no. 4 (2003): 485–516.Google Scholar

13. Persson, Torsten and Tabellini, Guido, Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000); Geddes, Barbara, “The Politics of Economic Liberalization,” Latin American Research Review 30, no. 2 (1995): 195–214; Haggard, Stephen and Kaufman, Robert, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

14. Keefer, Philip and Khemani, Stuti, “Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3164 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003).Google Scholar

15. Brown, and Hunter, , “Democracy and Human Capital Formation.” Google Scholar

16. Brown, , “Reading, Writing, and Regime Type”; Wintrobe, Ronald, The Political Economy of Dictatorship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

17. Chan, , “Democracy and Inequality.” Google Scholar

18. Kwon, Huck-ju, “Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia,” Development and Change 36, no. 3 (2005): 477–497; Wong, Joseph, Healthy Democracies, Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004); Aspalter, Christian, Democratization and Welfare State Development in Taiwan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Engerman, Stanley L., Mariscal, Elisa V., and Sokoloff, Kenneth L, “The Evolution of Schooling Institutions in the Americas, 1800–1925,” Working Paper (Los Angeles: University of California, 1998); Lindert, Peter, Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Also see note 4 for other literature on the positive relation between democracy and school enrollment.Google Scholar

20. Lewin, K. M., “Access to Education in Emerging Asia: Trends, Challenges and Policy Options,” research monograph for the Asian Development Bank, Emerging Asia Development Review, 1996.Google Scholar

21. Based on the standard Polity score, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Thailand experienced democratic transition in the late 1980s and Indonesia in the late 1990s, whereas Singapore and Malaysia remained authoritarian throughout the study period. In terms of education provision, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are relatively higher education achievers than Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.Google Scholar

22. Kaufman, and Segura-Ubiergo, , “Globalization, Domestic Politics.” Google Scholar

23. A more accurate measure for participation is net school enrollment ratio, which excludes children enrolled at a certain level but above the official school age. However, this measure suffers a serious missing data problem for countries in my sample.Google Scholar

24. Munck, Gerardo and Verkuilen, Jay, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy, Evaluating Alternative Indices,” Comparative Political Studies 35 (February 2002): 5–34.Google Scholar

25. Marshall, Monty, Jaggers, Keith, and Gurr, Ted Robert, Polity IV Project, 2003. The project website is www.cidcm.umd.edu/polity.Google Scholar

26. The democratic years in the dataset are Indonesia (1999–2002), South Korea (1988–2002), the Philippines (1987–2002), Thailand (1992–2002), and Taiwan (1992–2002).Google Scholar

27. Garrett, Geoffrey, “Globalization and Government Spending Around the World,” Studies in Comparative International Development 35, no. 4 (2001): 3–29; Mosley, Layna, “Room to Move: International Financial Markets and National Welfare States,” International Organization 54 (Autumn 2000): 737–773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Kaufman, and Segura-Ubiergo, , “Globalization, Domestic Politics.” Google Scholar

29. Adams, Don, “Education and National Development: Priorities, Policies, and Planning,” Education in Developing Asia Series, Asian Development Bank, 2002; Mingat, Alain, “The Strategy Used by High-performing Asian Economies in Education: Some Lessons for Developing Countries,” World Development 26 (April 1998): 695–715; Tilak, Jandhyala B. G., “Effects of Adjustment on Education: A Review of Asian Experience,” Prospects 27, no. 1 (1997): 85–107.Google Scholar

30. Quinn, Dennis, “The Correlates of Change in International Financial Regulation,” American Political Science Review 91 (September 1997): 531–551. For countries included in this study, Quinn provides data for 1973, 1982, 1988, and 1997 only. I extend his coding to annual data.Google Scholar

31. Kaufman, and Segura-Ubiergo, , “Globalization, Domestic Politics”; Rudra, and Haggard, , “Globalization, Democracy”; Stasavage, , “Democracy and Education Spending.” Google Scholar

32. Rudra, and Haggard, , “Globalization, Democracy”; Kaufman, and Segura-Ubiergo, , “Globalization, Domestic Politics.” Google Scholar

33. Kaufman, and Segura-Ubiergo, , “Globalization, Domestic Politics.” Google Scholar

34. Benabou, R., “Equity and Efficiency in Human Capital Investment: The Local Connection,” Review of Economic Studies 63 (1996): 237–264; Checchi, Daniele, “Inequality in Incomes and Access to Education: A Cross-Country Analysis (1960–95),” Labor 17 (June 2003): 153–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Bosworth, Barry and Collins, Susan M., “The Empirics of Growth: An Update,” Working Paper, Brookings Institution, September 2003. Their measure of capital stock has taken into particular consideration issues such as stock vs. investment and domestic vs. international prices.Google Scholar

36. Nelson, Joan M., Economic Crisis and Policy Choice, the Politics of Adjustment in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Kim, Chae-Han, “Political Business Cycle in Korea,” in Mo, Jongryn and Chung-In, Moon, eds., Democracy and Korean Economy (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1999).Google Scholar

37. Kraemer, Moritz, “Electoral Budget Cycles in Latin America and the Caribbean: Incidence, Causes, and Political Futility,” Working Paper Series No. 354, Office of the Chief Economist, Inter-American Development Bank, 1997.Google Scholar

38. The simple Pearson correlation between these two variables is — .9.Google Scholar

39. Rudra, and Haggard, , “Globalization, Democracy.” Google Scholar

40. Beck, Nathaniel and Katz, Jonathan, “What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data,” American Political Science Review 89 (September 1995): 634–647; Beck, Nathaniel and Katz, Jonathan, “Nuisance vs. Substance: Specifying and Estimating Time-Series–Cross-Section Models,” Political Analysis 6 (1996): 1–36; Beck, Nathaniel, “Time-Series–Cross-Section Data: What Have We Learned in the Past Few Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 271–293. Beck, Nathaniel and Katz, Jonathan, “Time-Series–Cross-Section Issues: Dynamics,” Working Paper, New York University, 2004; Greene, William H., Econometric Analysis (New York: Macmillan, 2003).Google Scholar

41. Beck, Nathaniel and Katz, Jonathan, “Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water: A Comment on Green, Kim, and Yoon,” International Organization 55 (Spring 2001): 487–495; Kittel, Bernhard and Winner, Hannes, “How Reliable Is Pooled Analysis in Political Economy? The Globalization-Welfare State Nexus Revisited,” European Journal of Political Research 44 (March 2005): 269–293.Google Scholar

42. Given the methodological limitations on testing stationarity for TSCS data, both the Im-Pesaran-Shin panel unit root test and Dicky-Fuller tests for individual time series in each country are performed. Details of the tests are not shown here due to space limitations.Google Scholar

43. Beck, Nathaniel, “Time Series–Cross Section Data”; Banerjee, Anindya, ed., Co-integration, Error Correction and Econometric Analysis of Nonstationary Data (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

44. Kaufman, and Segura-Ubiergo, , “Globalization, Domestic Politics.” Google Scholar

45. Objections have been made that including country and decade dummies might absorb cross-section and cross-time variance; thus, scholars need to be careful about using them by balancing their advantages and disadvantages. Plumper, Thomas, Troeger, Vera E., and Manow, Philip, “Panel Data Analysis in Comparative Politics: Linking Method to Theory,” European Journal of Political Research 44 (March 2005): 327–354; Beck, and Katz, , “Time Series–Cross Section Issues.” In response to these concerns, an F-test has been conducted in the study to assess whether country effects are required; some countries have also been added or dropped from the model one at a time to see whether the results would differ. In terms of using the decade dummy of the 1990s, given that my data (eight countries, thirty-three years each) are dominant in the time dimension, I am less worried that one decade dummy would badly absorb the variation.Google Scholar

46. Since I do not theoretically expect a long-run impact of election cycle on education spending, I have only included a differencing term for it.Google Scholar

47. Fox, John, Applied Regression Analysis, Linear Models, and Related Methods (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997).Google Scholar

48. For a detailed derivation of the error correction model and the interpretation of the coefficients, see Appendix 2.Google Scholar

49. For formulas to interpret the coefficients, see Appendix 2.Google Scholar

50. Data for disaggregated spending are available only for the period 1971–1997, while data for aggregate spending covers 1971 to 2003. What compounds less data availability for disaggregated spending models is the problem of missing data in countries such as Indonesia.Google Scholar

51. The four measures are (1) another dichotomous measure of democracy that highlights its contestation and participation nature (Alvarez, Mike, Cheibub, José Antonio, Limongi, Fernando, and Przeworski, Adam, “Classifying Political Regimes,” Studies in Comparative International Development 31 [Summer 1996]: 3–36); (2) a continuous measure of the Polity score, (3) the liberty score published by Freedom House focusing on a list of political and civil rights that citizens should enjoy in a democracy (Gastil, Raymond Duncan, “The Comparative Survey of Freedom: Experiences and Suggestions,” Studies in Comparative International Development 25 [Spring 1990]: 25–50); and (4) a democracy score (polyarchy) constructed by Vanhanen, Tatu, “A New Dataset for Measuring Democracy, 1810–1998,” Journal of Peace Research 37, no. 2 (2000): 251–265, relying mainly on election results.Google Scholar

52. The positive impacts of democracy on secondary school enrollment are no longer significant when I use indicators that do not emphasize the institutional constraint dimension of democracy (Freedom House liberty score and Vanhanen's polyarchy index; see note 51).Google Scholar

53. For example, the explanatory variables already in the model (except capital stock as percent of GDP) can explain 35 percent of total government spending.Google Scholar

54. Two studies have identified different effects of democracy on education achievement for rich and poor countries: Brown, , “Reading, Writing, and Regime Type”; and Baum, and Lake, , “Political Economy of Growth.” Google Scholar

55. Urbanization is included in the school enrollment models due to its high explanatory power.Google Scholar

56. Taiwan does not have data on capital account openness; Hong Kong lacks data on capital stock, polity score, and election.Google Scholar

57. I was able to include Taiwan in the estimation sample by dropping the explanatory variable of capital account openness; similarly, by dropping capital account openness, capital stock, election, and the changing of democracy specification from polity scores to Freedom House liberty scores, I was able to include both Taiwan and Hong Kong in the estimation sample.Google Scholar

58. Another advantage of case study is to help identify the underlying causal process, which is beyond the scope of this article.Google Scholar

59. Among other democratizing cases in the sample, South Korea, which democratized in the late 1980s and has a relatively high income, is well represented by Taiwan. The Philippines, with lower income and democratization in the late 1980s, is well represented by Thailand. Indonesia, which democratized in the late 1990s, is a less ideal candidate to study the effects of democratization, which may take some time to realize.Google Scholar

60. Three kinds of proelite spending inequalities have been identified by the Taiwanese education movement organizations: (1) the government devoted more resources to university education than to compulsory education; (2) investment in academic education was favored by the government over vocational education; (3) private education received few subsidies from the government compared with public education. Given the strict government control of enrollment in public universities and senior high academic schools, it is students coming from rich families that are more likely to go to the better-funded academic schools, public schools, and universities, as they can better afford extra exam tutoring and fees and have less need to make money. Xue, Xiaohua, Civil Education Reform Movement in Taiwan (in Chinese) (Taipei: Qianwei Publishing, 1996).Google Scholar

61. Xue, , Civil Education Reform Movement in Taiwan. Google Scholar

62. Chen, Jing, “Globalization, Democratization and Government Education Provision in East Asia” (PhD diss., Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 2007).Google Scholar

63. Article 164 of the Taiwanese constitution stipulated that “expenditures of educational programs, scientific studies and cultural service shall be, in respect of the central government, no less than 15 percent of the total national budget; in respect of each province, no less than 25 percent of the total provincial budget; and in respect of each municipality or hsien, no less than 35 percent of the total municipal or hsien budget.” Google Scholar

64. Some authors argue that this is because the central government devoted most resources to defense spending. Zhu, Jingyi and Ye, Jiahui, “Private Education in Taiwan: Examination of Current Status and Policy Recommendations” (in Chinese), paper presented at the National Civil Education Reform Conference, January 8, 1994.Google Scholar

65. Due to the limitation of my research, I have no information on the names of these legislators or the bills they proposed.Google Scholar

66. Article 164 was abolished upon recommendation by officials in the executive branch, such as the Ministry of Finance and the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, and the Executive Yuan, for reasons of inefficiency and waste. Chen, Lizhu, “The Crisis and Turning Point of Education Finance in Taiwan” (in Chinese), proceedings of the Taiwan Education Fundamental Act Conference, 2000); Huang, Shixin and Ding, Zhiquan, “A Study on Education Revenues and Expenditures: Reasons for Freezing Article 164 of the Constitution and Responses” (in Chinese), Taiwan: Ministry of Education, June 1999.Google Scholar

67. Another reason for the decreasing ratio is the smaller youth population at the primary and the secondary levels.Google Scholar

68. Phongpaichit, Pasuk and Baker, Chris, Thailand: Economy and Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

69. Neher, Clark, “Democratization in Thailand,” Asian Affairs 21 (Winter 1995): 195–209.Google Scholar

70. Teokul, Waranya, “Social Development in Thailand,” ASEAN Economic Bulletin 16, no. 3 (1999): 360–372.Google Scholar

71. Nakornthap, Silaporn, Educational Policy and Politics in Thailand: A Case Study of Education Reform, 1973–77 (Tallahassee: Florida State University, 1986).Google Scholar

72. In the mid-1980s, of the students who passed the university entrance exams, 46 percent were Bangkok residents and 74 percent were children of proprietors or government officials. Furthermore, the subsidies provided by the government for the tertiary level far outweigh those provided for the primary and secondary levels. Kuhonta, Erik M., “The Political Economy of Equitable Development in Thailand,” American Asian Review 21 (Winter 2003): 69–108.Google Scholar

73. Murray, David, “The 1995 National Elections in Thailand: A Step Backward for Democracy?” Asian Survey 36 (April 1996): 361–375; World Bank, Thailand: Secondary Education for Employment, vol. 1: A Policy Note (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001).Google Scholar