Democratization and government education provision in East Asia.(Report)

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: democratization, education policy, East Asia, redistribution, education spending, school enrollment, error correction model, time-series--cross-section analysis, Taiwan, Thailand

**********

While the successful economic growth of East Asia with relative equity has often been attributed to the importance East Asian governments attach to providing basic education to their citizens, (1) little is known about how the recent trend of democratization has affected government education provision in this region. Given the more than a decade of democratic experience in some East Asian countries, we can begin to evaluate this question. In this article, I ask whether democratic governments in East Asia provide better education services to their citizens than do nondemocratic governments.

The belief that democratic governments care more about public service provision such as education can be derived from several theoretical traditions that highlight the role of electoral competition, the rationality of politicians, and the mobilization of interest groups. However, the counterarguments to each tradition are many. Authoritarian regimes may also have incentives to improve education services, such as boosting legitimacy or facilitating economic growth.

This article contributes to a growing body of literature that explores empirically whether the transition to democracy makes an impact on government education provision. The evidence so far tilts toward a positive effect of democracy on improving total education spending, (2) education spending at the primary level, (3) and various education outcomes such as school enrollment, literacy rates, and gender equity. (4) Nevertheless, some studies identify a negative or a null relationship between democracy and various education indicators. (5)

This article makes two important contributions to the existing body of empirical research. First, it is the first regionwide investigation in East Asia (6) that, with its newly established democratic institutions, provides a hard test of the effects of democracy. Authoritarian regimes in this region have proven successful in both economic development and social service provision. Second, by studying at the same time the effects of democracy on multiple education indicators--total government education spending, spending at different levels of education, and school enrollment rates--I examine not only whether democratic governments increase education resources, but also which social groups are favored in the distribution of such resources and whether the resources are utilized more efficiently under democratic governments.