There is a persistent notion in international education and policy circles: send young people from non-Western countries to Western universities, and they return as bearers of democracy. It sounds almost self-evident. Education shapes. Exposure changes people. And so, society changes along with them. But those same Western educational institutions also shaped various dictators… A topic that might seem far removed from your daily life, but it says more about the impact of education than you might think.

A recent review study by Anar Ahmadov brought together 94 studies on this theme. And what stands out is not that the answer is complex. We already knew that. After all, it has to do with education. What stands out most is that the question itself may be phrased incorrectly. Does a Western education have a democratizing effect? ​​The honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no, and often not at all.

The study roughly distinguishes three camps:

Optimists see how students take democratic values ​​with them, build networks, and stimulate reforms.
Pessimists point to the long list of leaders educated in the same systems who subsequently strengthened authoritarian regimes. And sceptics suspect little systematic effect.
All three are right. And at the same time, they are missing something. For they all start from the same implicit assumption: that a “Western education” is a uniform intervention with a predictable effect. But what exactly is Western education?

A political science student at an American liberal arts college, an engineer in Germany, a soldier in a NATO program, and a participant in a short diplomatic exchange program are often lumped together in this literature. As if they had the same experience. As if they learned the same things. And as if that has the same effect.

A second finding is even more fundamental. The question of whether people can actually change their beliefs. We often assume so. But the study shows that there is surprisingly little hard evidence for this in this context. And even when attitudes change, they do not necessarily remain stable. Or they do not translate into behaviour. What someone thinks in a seminar in London is something different from what that same person does in a ministry in their home country.

And then, finally, there is the context. Who gets the chance to study in the West? Who returns? And also: who ends up in positions where he or she can make a difference? And perhaps even more importantly: what does the system in the home country allow? All of this often proves to be more decisive than the education itself.

I once saw a coffee shop at a British college that had been donated by an Arab prince who had attended classes there. He must certainly have received a solid education and training. But this review study shows that he likely remained primarily a prince.