More about the project
This doctoral research investigates how civic education interacts with contextual factors to influence the persistence of clientelism in African democracies. While civic education is widely seen as a mechanism for fostering democratic norms, this project challenges the assumption of its uniformly positive impact. Instead, it theorizes and empirically tests a “Conditional Civic Habitus” framework, which posits that the effectiveness of civic education in reducing clientelism depends on specific material, institutional, and cognitive conditions.
Theoretically, the project extends Bourdieu’s concept of habitus through Pettit’s notion of civic habitus, offering an original synthesis to explain variations in political behavior. Drawing on large-N quantitative methods, it constructs a new Civic Education Index from V-Dem data and leverages Afrobarometer surveys to examine the relationship between civic learning and clientelist attitudes and behaviors across African countries.
The research makes two central contributions: First, it provides a novel theoretical lens to understand the limits and potential of civic education under conditions of cognitive and economic autonomy. Second, it offers practical implications for democracy promotion, suggesting that civic education must be strategically designed to align with contextual enablers such as institutional trust, political inclusion, and educational access to achieve lasting impact.
By bridging political science, education policy, and development studies, the project brings interdisciplinary insight to pressing debates on democratic deepening in the Global South. It is of direct relevance to international organizations, education ministries, and civil society actors seeking to craft civic education programs that mitigate clientelism and strengthen democratic norms in contexts of persistent disadvantage.
The project is part of the research in the Linnaeus University Research Group on Political Behavior, Opinion and Parties (LNU-POP).
