经济学人108:民主的程度

 　　Economics focus经济聚焦

　　Degrees of democracy

　　民主的程度

　　More education does not necessarily lead to greater enthusiasm for representative politics

　　受教育程度越高并不一定对代表制政治产生更大的热情

　　Jun 23rd 2011 | from the print edition

　　ON JUNE 20th Zine el-Abedine Ben-Ali, Tunisia’s former ruler, was sentenced in absentia to 35 years in prison. Many trace the origins of the popular rebellion that forced him from office to frustration¹ over the treatment by the police of a young man with few job prospects². That combustible³ mixture of authoritarianism⁵, unemployment and youth has played a big role in sparking many of the popular uprisings across the Middle East and north Africa that followed Tunisia’s. But some argue that increased education should also take credit for the Arab spring.

　　6月20号，前突尼斯总统Zine el-Abedine Ben-Ali在其未出席的情况下被判35年监禁。许多人探求这场大规模的反抗的根源，由于警察部门过分的对待一个没有就业前景的年轻人导致的反抗迫使他从当政者变为了阶下囚。即突尼斯之后，包括独裁主义、失业和年轻人的易冲动的混合体在中东和北非引起许多大规模的暴动。但是一些人认为增加的教育也应该为这场阿拉伯承担责任。

　　Many of the countries where disaffection with strongmen rulers has spilled over into revolt have seen their education levels rise sharply in recent decades. Young people in these countries are far better educated than their parents were. In 1990 the average Egyptian had 4.4 years of schooling⁶; by 2010 the figure had risen to 7.1 years. Could it be that education, by making people less willing to put up with restrictions⁷ on freedom and more willing to question authority, promotes democratisation?

　　许多由于对强硬领导人不满情绪涌出而导致起义的国家，其教育水平在近几十年中有大幅的提升。这些国家中的年轻人受到的教育远好于他们的父母。1990年平均每个埃及人接受4.4年的教育，到了2010年这个数字提升到7.1年。是教育促使民主化么？教育使得人们更少愿意忍受对自由的限制，更愿意挑战权威。

　　Ideas about the links between education, income and democracy are at the heart of what social scientists in the middle of the last century termed the “modernisation hypothesis”. One of its most famous proponents⁸, Seymour Lipset, wrote in 1959 that “education presumably broadens men’s outlooks, enables them to understand the need for norms of tolerance⁹, restrains them from adhering to extremist and monistic doctrines¹⁰, and increases their capacity to make rational electoral choices.”

　　关于教育、收入和民主之间联系的看法是上世纪中期被社会科学家称为“现代化假说”的核心。最著名的支持者Seymour Lipset在1959年写到“教育可能拓宽人们的视野，使他们能够理解宽容的必要性，减少他们对极端主义和一元论学说的依附，提高他们做出理性的选举决择的能力。

　　Since then plenty of economists¹¹ and political scientists have looked for statistical¹² evidence of a causal link between education and democratisation. Many have pointed¹³ to the strong correlation¹⁴ that exists between levels of education and measures like the pluralism of party politics and the existence of civil liberties (see left-hand chart). The patterns are similar when you look at income and democracy. There are outliers, of course—until recently, many Arab countries managed to combine energy-based wealth and decent education with undemocratic political systems. But some deduce from the overall picture that as China and other authoritarian⁴ states get more educated and richer, their people will agitate¹⁵ for greater political freedom, culminating in a shift to a more democratic form of government.

　　自那时起，许多经济学家和政治学家就已经在寻找教育和民主化之间因果关系的统计上的证据。许多人已经指出教育程度与像党派政见的多元化等评测以及公民自由之间存在很强的关联性。当你看收入和民主时，他们的增长模式是相似的。当然也存在例外，至今，许多阿拉伯国家把以能源为基础的财富和良好的教育与非民主的体系结合在一起。但是一些人从整体推断，当中国和别的独裁主义国家得到更多的教育，变得更加富裕，他们的人民将煽动更大的政治自由，最终转变为一个更加民主的治理形式。

　　This apparently¹⁶ reasonable intuition is shakier than it seems. Critics of the hypothesis point out that correlation is hardly causation. The general trend over the past half-century may have been towards rising living standards, a wider spread of basic education and more democracy, but it is entirely¹⁷ possible that this is being driven by another variable. Even if the correlation were not spurious, it would be difficult to know which way causation ran. Does more education lead to greater democracy? Or are more democratic countries better at educating their citizens?

　　这个明显的合理的直觉不像它看上去那样稳固。该假设的反对者指出他们之间的联系不是因果关系。虽然过去半个世纪普遍的趋势是不断提高的生活水平，更加广泛的基础教育和更加民主，但是这个趋势完全可能是被其他别的因素驱动的。即使这个联系不是错误的，也很难知道这种因果关系是以哪种方式运行的。更好的教育导致了更大的民主？还是更加民主的国家能够为他们的国民提供更好的教育？

　　The modernisation hypothesis suggested a particular direction of change: more education and income should beget¹⁸ greater democracy. But as the right-hand chart shows, there is virtually no statistical association at all between changes in a country’s level of education and its measured level of democracy. If this is true, there is no particular reason to hope that more education will lead to a more democratic world.

　　现代化假说表明一个特定的变化方向：更好的教育和更多的收入应该能够导致更加民主。但是正如右边的图表所示的那样，在一个国家教育水平的变化和它测量的民主水平之间确实没有统计上的关系。假如真是这样的话，就不存在特别的原因希望更好的教育导致一个更加民主的世界。

　　A recent NBER paper* sheds light on why this might be the case. Those who posit¹⁹ that more schooling leads to greater democracy often have specific ideas about how people’s attitudes change as a result of their becoming more educated, arguing that it creates people who are more willing to challenge authority. It is possible, however, that education reinforces authority and the power of ruling elites²⁰; indeed, it may often be designed to do precisely²¹ this. The study tried to find out which of these competing ideas of the effects of education is more accurate.

　　最近一个NBER论文解释了为什么可能是这样。那些假设更好的教育导致更加民主的人通常有一个特定的想法，认为作为人们得到更好教育的结果之一，人们的态度会发生改变，这导致了更加愿意挑战权威的人。但是，教育增强了权威和管理精英的力量是可能的，事实上，教育可能经常被设计去这样做。研究试图去找出这些不同的关于教育影响的观念中哪个是更加正确的。

　　The authors compared a group of Kenyan girls in 69 primary schools whose students were randomly²² selected to receive a scholarship with similar students in schools which received no such financial aid. Previous studies had shown that the scholarship programme led to higher test scores and increased the likelihood that girls enrolled²³ in secondary school. Overall, it significantly increased the amount of education obtained. For the new study the authors tried to see how the extra schooling had affected²⁴ the political and social attitudes of the women in question.

　　作者在69所小学挑选了一群肯尼亚的女同学进行对比，任意挑选一些学生给予一个奖学金，一些则没有这样的资助。奖学金计划导致了原先的学生有更好的成绩，并增加了被高中录取的可能性。整体来看，这明显增加了所获得的教育。对于这个新的研究，作者试图去看额外的教育如何影响妇女对于政治和社会的态度。

　　Class divide

　　What they found was in many ways contradictory²⁵. For instance, girls who benefited from the scholarship and got more schooling were more independent and less accepting of the traditional sources of authority within the family. But although education seemed in some sense to have “liberated” them in terms of their personal aspirations²⁶, it did not seem to have had the broader effects that proponents of the modernisation hypothesis would have expected. In particular, those with more education did not become more favourably²⁷ inclined towards democracy. In fact, education deepened their sense of identification with their ethnic²⁸ group and increased their tolerance for political violence. There was little evidence that having more education made them more engaged in civic²⁹ life or political organisations.

　　他们的发现在许多方面都是自相矛盾的。例如，收益于奖学金而得到更好教育的女孩更加独立，更少的接受传统家中的权威。但是虽然在某种意义来看教育似乎在他们个人志向上使他们更加自由，但是它看上去并没有现代化假说的支持者所期望的那样产生更广泛的影响。特别是，那些受到更好教育的人并没有变得更倾向于民主。事实上，教育加深了他们对他们民族的认同感，增加了他们对政治暴力的容忍度。没有证据表明拥有更好的教育使他们更多地参与到公民生活或政治组织。

　　This is not entirely surprising. Education may make people more interested in improving their own lives but they may not necessarily see democracy as the way to do it. Even in established democracies, more education does not always mean either more active political participation³⁰ or greater faith in democracy. In India, for example, poorer and less educated people vote in larger numbers than their more educated compatriots. Indeed, the latter often express disdain³¹ for, and impatience³² with, the messiness of democracy. Many yearn³³ instead for the kind of government that would execute the corrupt³⁴ and build highways, railway lines and bridges at the dizzying pace of authoritarian China.

　　完全不要感到惊讶。虽然教育是人们更注重改善他们自己的生活，但是他们也许不一定把民主作为达到目的的方法。甚至在已有的民主社会，更好的教育不总是意味着更积极地政治参与或更加坚定的民主信仰。例如，在印度，更贫穷、接受更少教育的人比接受过更好教育的人参与选举投票的人多。事实上，后者经常对混乱的民主表现出蔑视和漠不关心。相反，许多人向往这种政府，它能以独裁主义的中国那令人眩目的步伐惩治腐败，修建高速公路、铁路和桥梁。

1 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

2 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

3 combustible   

a. 易燃的,可燃的; n. 易燃物,可燃物

参考例句：

• Don't smoke near combustible materials. 别在易燃的材料附近吸烟。
• We mustn't take combustible goods aboard. 我们不可带易燃品上车。

4 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

5 authoritarianism   

权力主义，独裁主义

参考例句：

• Modern authoritarianism is a vestige of traditional personal rule. 现代独裁主义则是传统的个人统治的残余。
• In its latter days it was a byword for authoritarianism, incompetence, and corruption. 在后期，它是独裁、无能和腐化的代号。

6 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

7 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

8 proponents   

n.（某事业、理论等的）支持者，拥护者( proponent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Reviewing courts were among the most active proponents of hybrid rulemaking procedures. 复审法院是最积极的混合型规则制定程序的建议者。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• Proponents of such opinions were arrested as 'traitors. ' 提倡这种主张的人马上作为“卖国贼”逮捕起来。 来自辞典例句

9 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。

10 doctrines   

n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明

参考例句：

• To modern eyes, such doctrines appear harsh, even cruel. 从现代的角度看，这样的教义显得苛刻，甚至残酷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His doctrines have seduced many into error. 他的学说把许多人诱入歧途。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

13 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

14 correlation   

n.相互关系，相关，关连

参考例句：

• The second group of measurements had a high correlation with the first.第二组测量数据与第一组高度相关。
• A high correlation exists in America between education and economic position.教育和经济地位在美国有极密切的关系。

15 agitate   

vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动

参考例句：

• They sent agents to agitate the local people.他们派遣情报人员煽动当地的民众。
• All you need to do is gently agitate the water with a finger or paintbrush.你只需要用手指或刷子轻轻地搅动水。

16 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

17 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

18 beget   

v.引起；产生

参考例句：

• Dragons beget dragons,phoenixes beget phoenixes.龙生龙，凤生凤。
• Economic tensions beget political ones.经济紧张导致政治紧张。

19 posit   

v.假定，认为

参考例句：

• If she needs salvation,she will posit a savior.如果她需要救助，她就会设想一个救助者。
• Other historians posit that she died of old age around 550 BC.别的史学家则认为她一直活到公元前550年左右才寿终正寝。

20 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。

21 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

22 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

23 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

24 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

25 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

26 aspirations   

强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音

参考例句：

• I didn't realize you had political aspirations. 我没有意识到你有政治上的抱负。
• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。

27 favourably   

adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably

参考例句：

• The play has been favourably commented by the audience. 本剧得到了观众的好评。
• The open approach contrasts favourably with the exclusivity of some universities. 这种开放式的方法与一些大学的封闭排外形成了有利的对比。

28 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

29 civic   

adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的

参考例句：

• I feel it is my civic duty to vote.我认为投票选举是我作为公民的义务。
• The civic leaders helped to forward the project.市政府领导者协助促进工程的进展。

30 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。

31 disdain   

n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑

参考例句：

• Some people disdain labour.有些人轻视劳动。
• A great man should disdain flatterers.伟大的人物应鄙视献媚者。

32 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

33 yearn   

v.想念；怀念；渴望

参考例句：

• We yearn to surrender our entire being.我们渴望着放纵我们整个的生命。
• Many people living in big cities yearn for an idyllic country life.现在的很多都市人向往那种田园化的生活。

34 corrupt   

v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的

参考例句：

• The newspaper alleged the mayor's corrupt practices.那家报纸断言市长有舞弊行为。
• This judge is corrupt.这个法官贪污。