#  Jan Pieskalla (Alesina Seminar) 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **December 4, 2025** 

 04:30PM - 05:45PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS Knafel room K354**  



 

 



 

## Speaker & Title

Jan Pieskalla (Ohio State), "Higher Education and the Making of Democratic Elites"

## Abstract

What is the effect of universities on democratization? Existing research has shown the democratizing effects of mass-level literacy and educational attainment, but has paid less attention to elite education. We argue that, besides mass education, universities can be important as a driver of democratization. Higher education, when autonomous from state control, offers alternative ruling elites the ability to forge social ties, acquire organizational skills, and engage in the production of ideological frames necessary for political collective action. This fosters intra-elite competition by politically empowering new social and economic elites, making democratization more likely (Ansell & Samuels, 2010). Using data on all public and private universities in the world and measures of academic freedom, we show that autonomous universities are positively associated with political liberalization. To illustrate the mechanism historically, we examine 19th-century Germany as a case study. A comparison of the University of Berlin and Heidelberg’s role during the 1848 revolution and an analysis of biographical data from parliamentarians in the 1848/49 Frankfurt Parliament shows that many of the liberal leaders had university backgrounds in law, philosophy, and the emerging social sciences, often at institutions with significant academic autonomy. These universities served as hubs for intellectual exchange and political networking, fostering the liberal and constitutional ideas that underpinned the revolution and early experiments with representative government.



 

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.



 

 



 [ draftsSubscribe to the Alesina Seminar mailing list](https://lists.iq.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/ppe_list) [  arrow\_forward  Alesina Seminar page ](https://www.iq.harvard.edu/program-political-economy) 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Alesina Seminar on Political Economy ](/program/seminar-political-economy)
 
 

 Share on:- [     Facebook ](#)
- [     Twitter ](#)
- [     Linkedin ](#)
 


 Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://www.iq.harvard.edu/node/1955256/event-feed.ics)  Copy link link