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This was supposed to be a story about Hello, a game that helps people have conversations about their end-of-life wishes and, in the process, enables them to explore and express what matters most to them.

But as it turns out, the creators of the gameJethro Heiko and Nick Jehlen, whose company is called Common Practiceare more like accidental, or incidental, game creators; their primary, and defining, profession is something more powerful, more timely. Theyre Action Enablers.

A little history.

As a college student in the 90s at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Heiko cared for his dying father; it was an experience that propelled him to start a bereavement organization with a local hospice in Boston, which he ran for a few years. Then he became a community organizer, leading, among other efforts, Fenway Votes, the charge to save Fenway Park, and co-founding Turn Your Back on Bush, an effort that rallied 5,000 people to descend on Washington to take a stand against Bushs election in 2004.

Voting is so important, I dont want to downplay voting, Jehlen says. But there are just so many other ways to do stuff. All of our work is geared towards giving people a way to try and do stuff.

It was while working as an organizer in Boston that Jethro met a woman whose then-boyfriend was designer Nick Jehlen. The two men became friends and then business partners, launching a consulting firm, and in 2003 Heiko moved to Philly to be near family, continuing to work with Jehlen, who soon after moved to New York. Once in Philly, Heiko became a founder of Casino-Free Philadelphia, getting arrested (and ultimately acquitted) while protesting.

But it was after a difficult client project fell apart that Heiko and Jehlen decided to think more deeply about what they really wanted to do, who they really wanted to serve. On a walk near 7th and Spring Garden streets one day, Heiko came up with an idea for a game called Fear Rummy, about fears and hopes.

That led us to an exploration of death and dying as an issue facing our society, Jehlen says. They began doing interviews, including many with hospice nurses who said, over and over, that they could provide really good care to people from families that had had one good conversation about death and dying. Thats all it took. And if they hadnt had that one conversation, it was a struggle. There was no entrance.

Hello, previously called My Gift of Grace, came out of that introspection and research. Its a conversational game that include a booklet of questions like, Who havent you talked to in six months that you would want to talk with before you died? and If you needed help going to the bathroom today, who is the first person you would ask to help you? Who would you never be able to ask? Its thoughtfully- and beautifully-designed; everyone gets a chance to talk and to listen, and to share their gratitude to fellow players.

But its more than that: Its effective.

Lauren Jodi Van Scoy, MD, is a pulmonologist at Penn State Hershey and the author of Last Wish: Stories to Inspire a Peaceful Passing. Shes been studying Hello for the last six years, and her findings are remarkable: She says that 80 percent of players take some next step towards advance care planning within three months of playing Hellowhether its talking to their physician or making funeral plans. I was really skeptical of the game when I first heard about it, she says. But its the most effective tool that Ive ever seen at getting people to actually do another step beyond just whatever the [end-of-life planning] intervention itself was.

Jehlen likes to say that there are more studies and data on Hello than on any other end-of-life tool. Its nice and cute, but its not Cards Against Humanityits actually gonna change the world, Heiko adds. To date, theyve sold about 40,000 copies of the game, and are looking to scale.

Watching Hello being played, one cant help but wonder what its potential could be to stimulate conversations beyond end-of-life, to get into matters of politics and policy when our country is in dire need of civil discourse.

There, Heiko and Jehlen are one step ahead.

Some more recent history.

After President Trump was elected, and as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rose to pop-political prominence as an antidote to our countrys collective fear and grief, Jehlen, with the help of an illustrator friend, created an RBG collar pin. He gave 100 of them away to friends.

Then he made 500 moreand sold them all, within days, on Facebook.

Meanwhile, the airport sit-ins in protest of Trumps immigration policies had begun and, watching the news, Jehlen wanted to do something: He realized that he could sell pins for a causethat cause, supporting the work of the legal teams on the front linesand so many more.

I think people want to feel like theyre part of something, Jehlen says. I think theres a real appeal to civil discourse and to being able to wear something that both shows your opinion and also isnt hitting other people over the head with it.

Now, Dissent Pinsa line of cool, colorful metal pins and jewelry, as well as stickers, with progressive subject matteris the financial engine driving the duos business, which they refer to internally as Dissent and Co. Theyve sold more than 150,000 items, and half of all proceeds from the sale of the pins go to meaningful causes.

The original RBG pin supports The Bronx Freedom Fund, International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), and the Center for Reproductive Rights. A colorful birth control pin supports Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Reproductive Health Access Project, and SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective.

Theres the IUD pin and a condom pin, a Thanks, Science pro-vaccine pin and gun-control pins and Pride pins and a Count Every Vote pin and more.

And while, sure, you could just as easily donate to Planned Parenthood without advertising that youve done so, Jehlen and Heiko recognize that there is power in broadcasting your beliefs, even if only silently.

I think people want to feel like theyre part of something, Jehlen says. I think theres a real appeal to civil discourse and to being able to wear something that both shows your opinion and also isnt hitting other people over the head with it.

Heiko wants the pins to empower people. When you wear a pin like that, it makes you behave a certain way, he says. Our hope is that you go into the day, and youll feel more powerful. Youll feel more powerful to stand up and dissent when you need to.

Not that theyre opposed to verbalizing their beliefs. On a recent Thursday morning in November, Heiko and Madeline Elwell, a Philly native who leads Common Practices customer outreach and engagement, showed up in front of Independence Hall, wearing, on their winter coats, name tags that said Hello, Im President Zelensky and Hello, Im President Trump, respectively. They proceeded to read the memorandum of the now-infamous July 25 call between the two world leaders; it was their way of saying, if only to the Chinese tourists and locals who happened to pass by, This is nuts, peoplewake up! They also created a document called the Citizen Subpoena, on which theyve been gathering citizen signatures to subpoena Mike Pence; they plan to mail it directly to the Veep himself.

In 2020, theyre launching The Big One, A preparation kit for the most important election of our lives. It is a five-by-eight card, downloadable for free on their site, with two questions: Why is the 2020 election important to you? and Because the 2020 election is important to you, what are you committing to do about it? It is meant to be shared and discussed among groups.

Witnessing, Jehlen says, alluding to the viewer turnout for the televised impeachment hearings, is very important, but its not the only thing. We are living through history, and we better grab the reins, he notes. Otherwise theres some really bad stuff that will continue to happen.

If their efforts seem all over the place, theres a unifying theme, ayupCommon Practice, among them all.

In many ways, all were designing are ways and handles to do things together, to do things in public, to take action, Jehlen says. I think theres a tendency in this moment in this democracy for people to believe that voting is the only thing that you can do. And voting is so important, I dont want to downplay voting. But there are just so many other ways to do stuff. All of our work is geared towards giving people a way to try and do stuff.

Link:
Common Practice Uses Games and Pins to Spur Health and Activism - The Philadelphia Citizen

While impeachment is likely to be the nations primary focus for the foreseeable future, Democrats must also sharply turn their attention locally, to directly target President Donald Trumps base across the Midwest if they want to win in 2020. Thats why my organization, American Bridge 21st Century, has launched a multimillion-dollar effort to do just that.

Launching a targeted strike to peel off Trumps white, working-class support in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and winning the 2020 election is how we will defeat Trump and save our democracy. While congressional Democrats are upholding the rule of law, the party cannot afford to hemorrhage white, working-class voters in the way that we have in the last several presidential cycles and still hope to win the electoral college.

Luckily, we dont have to choose between motivating our base and peeling off the presidents core supporters in these swing states. Electrifying a diverse coalition that represents the New America will be the eventual Democratic nominees job, but until that nominee is in place next summer, our partys allied organizations must fill the void by communicating with these voters and persuading them to not support Trump in 2020. We must do both and if you dont think a modern Democrat can do that, just look at what Andy Beshear did in Kentucky on Nov. 5.

Although a comparison between a statewide and a presidential election has its caveats, Beshear was able to defeat incumbent Republican governor Matt Bevin in a state that Trump won by 30 percent; Beshear did so by both surging his urban and suburban support and cutting into Bevins rural margins. Pike County, whose population is more than 97 percent white and mostly rural, serves as a prime example of this. In 2016, Pike County voted for Trump by more than 62 percent, a margin of more than 15,000 votes; last week, Beshear narrowed that gap to about 22 percent, losing the county to Bevin by just under 2,000 votes. By surging his margins in Fayette County, which encompasses Lexington, and reducing his margins in rural counties like Pike, Beshear eked out a victory against a highly unpopular Republican governor by just about 5,000 votes.

In 2020, were up against an incumbent president who is a lot more popular in the swing states, and who has an operation that is a lot more formidable. For the past three years, the Trump campaign and GOP apparatus have built out an operation in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania akin to a political Death Star. In the third quarter of 2019, the Trump campaign raised a record $125 million to fuel a gargantuan reelection campaign that has remained on the ground in swing states since his election.

But they arent just trying to win back these voters, theyre trying to surge their support with this group into the stratosphere. Nearly 500,000 white, working-class voters in Wisconsin did not turn out to vote in 2016, and the Trump team is currently spending millions in a highly sophisticated voter contact effort to turn this group out in even greater numbers. If Trumps operation succeeds in boosting their turnout by even just a little bit, it will be ballgame no matter how high the Democratic turnout is.

Democrats lost Wisconsin by less than a percentage point in 2016 because Trump surged his margins with white, working-class voters in rural regions across the state, and our turnout in urban areas like Milwaukee wasn't strong enough to counter his gains. This difference between a President TrumpDonald John TrumpMost Americans break with Trump on Ukraine, but just 45 percent think he should be removed: poll Judge orders Democrats to give notice if they request Trump's NY tax returns Trump's doctor issues letter addressing 'speculation' about visit to Walter Reed MORE and a President Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonThe Memo: Centrists change tone of Democratic race In 2020, democracy will be decided at the margins Michelle Obama presents Lin-Manuel Miranda with National Portrait Award MORE came down to a rail-thin margin.

That tiny margin in 2016 meant the difference between a president who banned transgender troops from serving in the military and one who would have enacted the Equal Rights Amendment into law; a president who has irreparably damaged farmers in an ego-inflated trade war with Beijing and one who would have held a steady hand on the global stage; a president who welcomes foreign interference in our elections and one who would work to prevent it. The list goes on.

In 2020, with a president openly extorting foreign powers to investigate his political opponents and a Republican Senate that appears set to let him off the hook our democracy will live or die by these margins. It will be to our own peril to ignore this group of voters any longer. We must engage now if we want to make Trump a one-term president.

Bradley Beychok is the co-founder and president of American Bridge 21st Century, a progressive super PAC that supports Democratic candidates and is an opposition-research group for the Democratic Party. Follow him on Twitter @beychok

See more here:
In 2020, democracy will be decided at the margins | TheHill - The Hill

The New York Times has a fairly shocking story about the Chinese governments horrific and systematic oppression of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim populations inside China. A 403-page document leak from inside the Chinese Communist Party reveals the vast, inhumane apparatus that the government has used to subjugate these groups in its Xinjiang region. Reporters Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley rightly call it the countrys most far-reaching internment campaign since the Mao era.

Over the past three years, the government has simply abducted as many as a million people (often entire families) and imprisoned them in camps and jails, where they are supposedly receiving treatment for their alleged radicalism. These are not people who have been charged with crimes; theyre merely Muslims.

Many of the documents detail how the authorities are to handle young Chinese who come home to find their families disappeared. One passage instructs authorities to explain things this way: Family members, including you, must abide by the states laws and rules, and not believe or spread rumors. Only then can you add points for your family member, and after a period of assessment they can leave the school if they meet course completion standards. In other words, it may be possible to buy your familys eventual freedom with your silence.

This dystopian nightmare was dreamed up by President Xi Jinping, who in 2014 called for a struggle against terrorism, infiltration, and separatism using the organs of dictatorship, and showing absolutely no mercy. The documents received by the Times contain references to plans to extend restrictions on Islam to other parts of China.

One can recognize that Islamist terrorism is a serious threat to life and liberty the world over and also see that the imprisonment of a million innocent people is a monstrous act of Communist authoritarianisma transgression that the United States should oppose with every tool at its disposal.

Sadly, this is only further evidence that American hopes for market-inspired freedom in China were misplaced. As I detail in the lead article of the December issue of COMMENTARY, U.S. efforts to make China and the former Soviet Union freer, better places via commercial investment didnt have the effect we thought it would 30 years ago.

In reading about the enormity of the Chinese internment operation, I was reminded of something I quoted in my own article: Without exception, rich countries are democracies (more or less) and stay that way. Some poor countries are also democracies, but most are not. And few of the poor democracies stay democratic over time. Although the progression isnt always smooth, the historical pattern is clear: As countries get richer, they become more democratic. The Asian nations are no exception. So said the Hoover Institutions Henry S. Rowen in 1999. Well, China is now the second-largest economy in the world. That economy grew at more than 10 percent for two decades. But theres no mistaking it for a democracy.

More:
China's Uighur Camps Illustrate the Failure at the End of History - Commentary Magazine

AUDHome-->Legal Rights-->Sample Letters

The Association for Union Democracy (AUD) is a pro-labor, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the principles and practices of democratic trade unionism in the North American labor movement. (Click here for more about AUD, or for a definition of Union Democracy.) For more information on your legal rights in the union, see the legal rights page.

Sample Letters to Adapt and Use

Disclaimer: the information presented on this website is general and intended for educational purposes. It is not a substitute for practical legal advice on any specific situation.

This website is made possible by contributions from union members and supporters like you. Please help us build the movement for union democracy, join or contribute to AUD.

A few tips on using these letters:

Sample Letter #1 To Get a Copy of Your Union Contract

click here to download and print this letter (pdf file)

BY CERTIFIED MAIL

April 7, 2000 Bernard Weiner, President United Workers of America, Local 3 735 Wythe Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11211

Dear Brother Weiner,

I am writing to request a copy of the current collective bargaining agreement between Local 3 and Overwork Manufacturing Corp.

I have worked at the Overwork Manufacturing Corp. as a machine operator and have been a member of Local 3 for 15 years. I understand that it is my right under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act to have a current and true copy of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and all related agreements (signed by both parties) that apply to me.

Please send me a copy of the collective bargaining agreement between Local 3 and Overwork Manufacturing Corp. to the address below or let me know when I can come to the office to obtain a copy of the agreement. I ask to receive a copy of the contract by April 21, 2000.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Luis Cruz 203 West 116th Street, Apt. 3B New York, NY 10034 (212) 456-9876

to ask a question about grievances for the text of the law that gives you this right for a brief explanation of the law

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Sample Letter #2 To Get a Copy of Your Union Constitution or Bylaws

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BY CERTIFIED MAIL April 7, 2000 Bernard Weiner, President United Workers of America, Local 3 735 Wythe Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11211

Dear Brother Weiner,

I am writing to request a copy of the Constitution and/or Bylaws of the United Workers of America, and the Constitution and/or Bylaws of Local 3.

I have worked at the Overwork Manufacturing Corp. as a machine operator and have been a member of Local 3 for 15 years. I understand that it is the union's obligation under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act to make available to its members a current, true, and complete copy of the Constitution and/or Bylaws of the union.

Please send me a copy of the International and Local Constitution and/or Bylaws to the address below or let me know when I can come to the office to obtain a copy of the documents. I ask to receive a copy of the Constitution and/or Bylaws by April 21, 2000.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Luis Cruz 203 West 116th Street, Apt. 3B New York, NY 10034 (212) 456-9876

to ask a question about your rights for a frequently asked question on getting the constitution or the text of the law that gives you this right for a brief explanation of the law

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Sample Letter #3 To File a Grievance

click here to download and print this letter (pdf file)

BY CERTIFIED MAIL

April 7, 2000 Brenda Waltham, President International Brotherhood of Industrial Workers, Local 5270 1010 Seventeenth Ave. New York, NY 10001

Dear Sister Waltham,

I have worked at the Overwork Manufacturing Corp. as a machine operator and have been a member of Local 5270 for 15 years.

[describe the problem briefly] I received a disciplinary warning from my supervisor, Brian LeBrat, on April 2, 2000. I went to Mr. LeBrat to complain about a puddle of water that was making my workstation unsafe. LeBrat yelled at me, then told me he was putting a letter in my file because I "have a bad attitude," and said the "next time" I would be fired. I have witnesses who will testify to these events.

[describe what you have done about it so far] On April 2, 2000 I went to my union delegate, Steve Climber, and told him about the situation. He said there was nothing I could do. The next day, I called the business agent, Earline Distant, at the local office several times and left two messages, but never received a return call.

It is my understanding that under the contract between Local 5270 and Overwork Manufacturing Corp. employees are to be disciplined only for "just cause." It is also my understanding that I am protected by the contract and federal law from working in unsafe conditions, or being retaliated against for complaining about unsafe conditions. [If you are not sure what the violations are, say "it is my understanding that the employer's actions violate my rights under the contract and/or the law."]

[Say what remedy you seek] I ask you to file a grievance on my behalf against Overwork Manufacturing Corp. to fight against this unjust discipline and to get the letter removed from my file.

Please inform me in writing by April 15, 2000 whether the union will file a grievance on my behalf.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Matilda Knowles 345 Meadowbrook Road Great Falls, New Jersey, 22024 (203) 456-9876

to ask a question about legal rights and organizing for a guide to getting your union to represent you for a book on the rights of union stewards (English & Espanol) for question and answer on changing your union

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Sample Letter #4 To Follow Up On A Grievance You Filed

(adapted, with permission, from "Grievances," by Dave Pratt, TRF 1999)

click here to download and print this letter (pdf file)

BY CERTIFIED MAIL

April 7, 2000

Earline Distant, Business Agent International Brotherhood of Industrial Workers, Local 5270 1010 Seventeenth Ave. New York, NY 10001

Dear Sister Distant,

I am contacting you regarding my grievance and the upcoming Step Three grievance hearing. In order to be well prepared for the hearing I am requesting the following:

That you contact me regarding a time to meet to review the presentation of my case. The best days for me to meet are on Tuesday and Saturday, in the afternoon.

That the following information be requested from the company: reports about previous safety complaints, my personnel file, and the company safety manual.

That statements be obtained from the witnesses involved in the case, including Donald Chauve, Wendy Peludo, and Marvin Barber, and that the local demand that they be released from work to attend the hearing.

Please contact me at work or at the number below to schedule the meeting to prepare for the hearing.

Thank you for your assistance.

In solidarity,

Matilda Knowles 345 Meadowbrook Road Great Falls, New Jersey, 22024 (203) 456-9876

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Sample Letter #5 To Inquire About Hiring Hall Procedures, Rules, and Lists

click here to download and print this letter (pdf file)

BY CERTIFIED MAIL

April 7, 2000 Bernard Weiner, President United Construction Workers of America, Local 22 735 Grand Ave. Grand Rapids, MI 11211

Dear Brother Weiner,

I am a member of Local 22 and I seek work through its job referral procedures. I have reason to believe that I have been and am being discriminated against by Local 22 in job referrals.

In order to determine whether I have been or am being discriminated against, I ask you to send me the following information:

a) the names, addresses and telephone numbers of persons on the Local 22 job referral list(s), and of the persons who have been referred to jobs, the dates of referral, dates of hire, and dates of last preceding discharge;

b) the names, addresses and telephone numbers of persons who, in the past six months and continuing, have asked to be referred to jobs by Local 22 or have their names placed on a list for job referral;

c) the date or dates of each such request;

d) the date or dates of each referral of such person to a job, the name of the person referred, and the name of the employer, and the jobsite he/she was referred to;

e) the date or dates of each hire and of any subsequent layoff/discharge, the name of the person hired and/or laid off, the name of the employer and of the jobsite.

I am willing to pay a reasonable fee for reproducing the information requested.

Please send me this information to the address below or let me know when I can come to the office to obtain it. I ask to receive the information by April 21, 2000.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Lance Wilde 203 West Tuckahoe Street Darnelle, MI 10034 (313) 456-9876

to ask a question about hiring halls for more information on rights and organizing for construction workers for a Manual for Survival for Women in the Trades for a booklet on Democracy in the Construction Trades for more on hiring hall rights for articles on construction unions

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Sample Letter #6 To Verify Your Eligibility To Run For Office

(adapted, with permission, from "Running for Local Union Office," by Dave Pratt, TRF 1999)

click here to download and print this letter (pdf file)

BY CERTIFIED MAIL

April 7, 2000 Bernard Weiner, Secretary Treasurer United Industrial and Allied Workers of America, Local 99 735 Grand Ave. Grand Rapids, MI 11211

Dear Brother Weiner,

Please verify my eligibility to run for office in the upcoming Local 99 officers election. As per the UIAWA constitution, I will expect your response within five days.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

More here:
Sample Letters - Union democracy

Empirical ViewNumber of Democracies

The majority of the world's countries are now governed by democratic regimes, defined as systems with citizen political participation, constraints on the power of the executive, and a guarantee of civil liberties. The visualization below shows the slow increase of democratic countries over the last 200 years. The rise of democracies has been interrupted by the atrocities during the two World Wars many young democracies fell back to become autocratic ahead of the Second World War.

After 1945 the number of democracies has started to grow again, but the very dramatic shift towards a democratic world has been the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1989. By clicking on 'Autocracies' and 'Anocracies', you can also see that after 1989 the number of autocracies has decreased dramatically while the number of anocracies initially increased then has stayed fairly stable.

The mere number of democratic countries does not us how many people in the world actually enjoy democratic rights since the population in different countries varies hugely. Therefore it is more interesting to look at the number of people governed by different political regimes. This is shown in the chart below.

By clicking on 'Relative', the following graph shows the share of people living in different regimes over the last two centuries.

The chart shows the share of people living under different types of political regimes over the last 2 centuries. Throughout the 19th century more than a third of the population lived in in countries that were colonized by imperial powers and almost everyone else lived in autocratically ruled countries. The first expansion of political freedom from the late 19th century onward was crushed by the rise of authoritarian regimes that in many countries took their place in the time leading up to the Second World War.

In the second half of the 20th century the world has changed significantly: Colonial empires ended, and more and more countries turned democratic: The share of the world population living in democracies increased continuously particularly important was the breakdown of the Soviet Union which allowed more countries to democratise. Now more than every second person in the world lives in a democracy.

We see the same data on political regimes onthe mapbelow, but it is worth pointing out that 4 out of 5 people in the world that live in an autocracy live in China.

The world has changed: 2 centuries ago most countries were autocratically ruled or part of a colonial empire, today most countries are democracies. The map below shows the data for 2015, but you can move the slider at the bottom past to see this change over the last 2 centuries.

Most countries in Europe and the Americas have become democracies. Some parts of Africa - especially in the West and the South - have democratized and so have countries in Asia; India is the world's largest democracy. Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Mongolia are all full democracies according to the Polity IV evaluation.

The following world mapof the age of democratic regimesshows that a democratic world is only a very recent achievement. It also indicates that economic success goes together with political liberation. The countries that have democratized first are mostly those countries that first achieved economic growth. The present rates of economic growth in the poorer countries of the world therefore give hope for further democratization around the world.

Below we will analyse what causes a country to turn democratic and vice versa what consequences democratisation has for the living conditions in the country.

But first I want to show how democratic countries differ from non-democratic countries.

The scatter plot below shows the latest observations for GDP per capita and the Polity IV score. No country that is an autocracy (score between -10 and -6) has an income of more than 15,000 international-$ if it is not heavily dependent on fossil-fuel exports. Countries that are autocratically ruled and do not have the option to export fossil fuels are poor.

As a measure for the health situation in a country I am looking at child mortality.

What we can see from the scatter plot below is that autocratic countries rarely have a healthy population. Few autocratic countries achieved a child mortality below 10 per 1,000. Democratic countries Polity score of 7 or higher on the other hand often have child mortality rates below 10 or even 5 per 1,000.

This cross section at one point in time does not tell us anything about the length of time that a country was ruled by a democratic government for this we have to study the link between democratisation and health in more detail and more carefully.

It is difficult to identify what causes countries to turn democratic and vice versa that is investigating how living conditions change in countries that turn democratic. The reason why social science gets so very difficult is that all good things tend to come together. We have just seen that in the preceding correlates section democratic countries are richer, healthier, happier, better educated and more. This means that if we study measures of all these aspects across countries we find a correlation between all of them; social scientists therefore use clever methods when trying to distinguish between correlation and causation.

A long-standing theory in political science stipulates that a country's level of education attainment is a key determinant of the emergence and sustainability of democratic political institutions, both because it promotes political participation at the individual level, and because it fosters a collective sense of civic duty.

Under this hypothesis, therefore, we should expect that education levels in a country correlate positively with measures of democratisation in subsequent years. The following visualization shows that this positive correlation is indeed supported by the data. As we can see, countries where adults had a higher average education level in 1970, are also more likely to have democratic political regimes today(you can read more about measures of education level in our entry on Global Rise of Education).

As usual, these results should be interpreted carefully, because they do not imply a causal link: it does not prove that increasing education necessarily produces democratic outcomes everywhere in the world.

However, the academic research here does suggest that there is a causal link between education and democratization indeed, a number of empirical academic papers have found that this positive relationship remains after controlling for many other country characteristics (see, for example, Lutz, Crespo-Cuaresma, and AbbasiShavazi 20103).

In considering the link between thetype of political regime and the protection of human rights it is important to note that the right to vote on those in political power is in itself a fundamental right. In this sensedemocratic countries are by definition those countries in which this important dimension of human rights is protected.

Butthere are several human rights and it isinteresting to study the link betweendemocracy and these. As we note in our entry on human rights it is however very difficult to measure human rights protections consistently. The best available human rights measure is theprotection score published by political scientist Christopher J. Fariss in Farriss (2014)4. This measure focusses on the protection of the physical integrity of citizensand captureswhethera government protects the physical integrity of its citizens and takes into accounttorture, government killing, political imprisonment, extrajudicial executions, mass killings and disappearances. Higher human rights scores indicate better human rights protection.

The visualisation below plotsthe regime type again captured bythe Polity IVmeasure as before against thishuman rightsprotection score.

Political regime scores of 6 and above indicate a democratic regime and we see from this chart that citizens of non-democratic countries have generally much lower chances of being governedby a regime that ensures the protection ofhuman rights in this dimension.With the exception of two countries Singapore and Oman all countries thathave human rights score of higher than 0.5 are democratic regimes.

Mulligan, Gil, and Sala-i-Martin (2004)5investigate the link between democratic rule and the protection of human rights in a sample of 121 counties controlling for other important variables. The authors find that relative to autocratic regimes countries that are democratically ruled are less likely to execute, regulate religion, and to censor the press.

We have seen above that there is empirical evidence that an expansion ofeducation is making it more likely that a country becomes a democracy. Now we want toask the question the other way around, isdemocratisation followed by an improvement of education?6

Evidence that democratisation leads to better education

It is notstraightforward to identify the possible effect of a democratic regime on the expansion of education because it has to be distinguished from the previously discussed reverse causation running from education to democracy.

Gallego (2010)7 presents the most careful analysis that we are aware of and presents evidencethat democracy hasindeed a causal effect on primary school enrollment.8

Other papers deal with the issue of possible reverse causality in a simpler fashion and use lagged observations of democracy as a possible determinant for the level of education.For example Baum and Lake (2001)find in 'The invisible hand of democracy' that democratisation increasedsecondary-school enrollment.9

Also, Acemoglu, Naidu, Restrepo, and Robinson (2015)10find that democracy is associated with an increase in secondary schooling.

In the following we summarize some evidence on the channels through which democratisation improves education:

Electoral competition in democraciesincreases the incentive to abolish school fees

Harding and Stasavage (2014)11 equally identify an impact ofdemocracy on primary education. The explanation the authors proposeis that electoral competitionin democracies increases the incentives for politicians toabolish primary school fees. The authors caution that democratisation hasa much small effect on the provisionof school inputs and consequently the quality of schooling, because executive actions on these issues are more difficult to monitor and thereforeconstitute a smalleradvantage to politicians in electoral competition.

Democratisation increaseseducational spending

In an earlier paper Stasvage (2005)12 focussed on Africa andfinds that the shift to multiparty competition in African countries in the 1990sincreased total educational spending as a percentage of GDP.

In an extensive study of 100 countries over 40 years Ansell (2010)13 presents evidence that democratisation increases bothtotal educational spending as a shareof GDP and as a shareof the government budget.

Evidence that democracy improvesteacherstudent ratios

Naidu (2011)14 studies the effect of the 19th century disenfranchisement of black citizens in the U.S. South throughpoll taxes and literacy tests. The author finds that this reversal of democracy"reduced the teacher-child ratio in black schools by 10-23%, with no significant effects on white teacher-child ratios".

Democracy improved local politics in China and lead to more educated politicians

Martinez-Bravo et al. (2012)15 study the gradual introduction oflocal elections in China.

Theauthors exploit the staggered timing ofthe introduction of village elections as a natural experiment for causal identification. The authors "find that elections significantly increase public goods expenditure, the increase corresponds to demand and is paralleled by an increase in public goods provision and local taxes" confirming some of the results elsewhere in this entry including increasedpublic education in villages with more children. Theincrease in public expenditures overall total public goods investment increased by 27 percent is funded by villagersand is accompanied by an increase in the amount of local taxes paid by villagers.

The introduction of elections also reduced inequality by redistributing from the rich to the poor partly through land redistribution fromelite-controlled enterprises to household farmland and improved agricultural productivity by increasing irrigation whichis likely to "disproportionately benefit poorer households".

Additionally the authors report that following the introduction of electionsthe turnover of village chairmen increased and their characteristics changed.Theyare less likely to be Communist Party members and the politcians are importantly bettereducated themselves.

It is necessarily controversial to measure a complex concept such as the type of a political regime in a single metric. But since it can be useful to quantify the political regime characteristics so that it is possible to compare political regimes over time and between countries and to study the drivers and consequences of political regime change quantitatively. For example a field of study where this can be useful is studying the link between democratisation and the end of mass famines.

A much cited, thorough evaluation of commonly used democracy measures has been presented by Munck and Verkuilen (2002).16 Unfortunately the authors find a trade-off between the comprehensiveness of the empirical scope and the quality of the assessment in terms of conceptualization, measurement and aggregation. According to the authors, the Polity IV measures are a 'partial exception' of this tradeoff, and therefore I rely on these measures mostly in this entry. In general, the Polity IV defines democracy as a system which has institutions in which citizens can express their preferences, has constraints on the power of the executive, and a guarantee of civil liberties. It defines an autocracy as a system that restricts political participation by citizens, has executives chosen within the political elite, and executives with few institutional constraints.

The Polity IV measure used here is certainly also questionable as would every other alternative but we chose it as my main source because based on our comparison with alternatives and the paper by Munck and Verkuilen (2002) it is the best available option, particularly if a long-run perspective is the main objective.

We also have to keep in mind that this measure cannot capture everything that matters for a political regime. For example it makes sense to measure corruption or human rights separately from the democracy concept. Not because it doesn't matter but because all aspects matter and for different question we want to be able to differentiate between the importance of different factors.

This graph compares the political regime measures that are available for a very long time - since the early 19th century: the Polyarchy measure and the Polity measure and for a shorter period the the Freedom House measure. Shown is the share of democratic countries among all independent countries. There are some differences but the graphs shows they largely move together.

See the original post here:
Democracy - Our World in Data