University Elections and Political Socialization in the Developing World

Foundational political behavior scholarship posits that institutions of higher education foster the types of attitudes and patterns of civic engagement that sustain liberal democracy. Yet throughout the developing world, authoritarian, ethnosectarian, and clientelist political parties often intervene in university politics, particularly through competition in student elections. We argue this intervention limits the liberalizing effect of participation in university associational life. To test this argument, we measure the effect of political party intervention in university life using a panel survey experiment conducted at the American University of Beirut (AUB) during the university's annual student elections. Using a choice-based conjoint experiment embedded in a difference-in-differences design--the first of its kind--we estimate the causal effect of participation on non-partisan students. We find that processes of university socialization reproduce status quo politics and limit the ability of these environments to encourage critical, tolerant, and liberal-minded citizens.