The nature of the Education Cleavage in four Eroding Democracies1

Abstract In recent years, weaker and consolidated democracies alike were in many instances caught by a wave of autocratisation. However, given the protractedness in the time of the phenomenon of democratic erosion, it is not unlikely that the process overlaps with multiple electoral cycles. This gives to those parties committed to liberal democracy a window to organise themselves and challenge the incumbent at the ballots. The present study investigates whether the political division between incumbent parties and organised pro-democratic opposition in Poland, Hungary, Bolivia and Turkey coincides with a political cleavage that fits Baiern and Maier’s three-dimensional conceptualisation of the term. Through a quantitative approach, it emerges that indeed authoritarian and liberal values (Normative dimension) substantially account for the divergence in political support (Organisational dimension) by the different educated groups (Social dimension) in all the countries under observation. These findings not only support the existence of an educational cleavage outside of Western and Northern Europe, but also highlights its centrality in the ongoing fight for democracy. Furthermore, Hungary appears as a peculiar case, since democratic commitment accounts more than the authoritarian-liberal scale in explaining the support (or lack of it) for the incumbent party by the Hungarian educational groups.