Elected by the school or by the people?

The growing influence of meritocratic ideology goes hand in hand with a decrease in the share of non-graduates in political bodies. This trend amplifies the sociological gap between representatives and those represented and fuels populist resentment.

Is it desirable, both from the point of view of efficiency and social justice, to be governed by highly educated people? This is the question posed by the book by Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille. At a time when the yellow vest movement raises the question of the transformation of social divisions and the drivers of mobilization, this question indeed appears to be quite central. It goes beyond the simple national framework, as the book shows, and questions political and social developments observed in a certain number of countries. Mobilizing data from large international comparative surveys (in particular the European social survey of 2014, International social survey program and Eurobarometers), the authors are thus interested in the political and social divide which opposes graduates to non-graduates in a growing number of European countries and in the potentially deadly nature that educational meritocracy presents for democracy.

This “problem” that diplomas constitute in contemporary Western democracies could, however, seem quite counterintuitive. Indeed, the meritocratic model – namely a social hierarchy based on diplomas – has been imposed in many societies, because it appears more effective: having academic skills would indeed be increasingly important for understanding and governing societies that are becoming more complex. It also appears fairer than the previously dominant aristocratic society model, where social heritage decided the fate of each person. However, in a context where the conditions seem to be right for democracy to be doing its best (lasting peace, development of information channels, rising level of education of citizens), the authors reveal the seeds of a profound crisis of democracy.

The generalization of education

Bovens and Wille recall and qualify, in the first two chapters, the generalization of education in European countries: the massification of education, common to most Western countries, has allowed a quantitative, but not qualitative, democratization of diplomas, due to the multiple hierarchies that are recreated at higher levels of training. They recall, however, that in all the countries studied, between two thirds and three quarters of the population remain without “college degree” Or “graduate degree“ (p. 24).

More original, the following chapter highlights the new social fractures that have accompanied the development of education. In addition to the salary differences between the most and least qualified, accentuated by homogamy, there is the reduction in common spaces for social interaction (linked for example to school avoidance or urban segregation). The growing gap in individual norms and values ​​makes these fractures a “deep divide” (“deep social and full political cleavage”p. 41). Indeed, whether on immigration, the environment, globalization or even the European Union, everything opposes the opinions of the most educated to those of the least educated. The authors thus distinguish attitudes that they qualify as “nationalist” of the least educated, to the “cosmopolitan” attitudes of the most educated. These attitudes correspond to a differentiated craze for emerging parties in the European political sphere: ecological or “socio-liberal” parties are more popular with the most educated while nationalist, even populist, parties are more followed by the least educated.

Restricting their analysis, in the second part of the book, to Western European democracies that they describe as “mature”, namely Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the authors highlight the divisions on the forms and intensity of political participation induced by the diploma. The most educated are, unsurprisingly, those who read and talk the most about politics with their friends, those who vote the most, lead the most militant actions, and join a party more frequently. This differentiated political participation is also perceived through civil society, where the most educated are very active, whether in the NGO or other more sectoral forms of organizations. In more direct forms of power, namely in legislative assemblies and as members of the executive, the gap is also flagrant: the social origin of members of parliament in the different countries has thus first diversified (a sign of mass education) before becoming homogenized (a sign of social reproduction by schools of the advantages linked to social status, via the obtaining of diplomas). In the political field, the European institutions appear particularly selective in terms of education: as the authors point out, eight out of ten MEPs hold a higher education diploma and a quarter of them a doctorate. Selectivity is even stronger in the executive, whatever the country considered: this can be explained by the professionalization of political careers, which has been accompanied by significant schooling of these functions (through almost obligatory passages through dedicated grandes écoles, such as theENA in France), replacing other methods of advancement (such as through the union or through smaller-scale elections).

Meritocracy has no place in democracy

How is this political domination of the most highly qualified problematic? The last part of the book asks this fundamental question and shows how meritocracy can endanger democracy. Indeed, the authors first point out that given the divisions highlighted in the first part, the absence of non-qualified people in political bodies harms the representation of their values ​​and practices, preventing any form of possible identification with those in power and probably explains their disaffection for politics, which can be observed in all European countries. This domination of the most highly qualified also appears to be only slightly justified, insofar as, contrary to the Platonic model, the most educated would not necessarily be better governors than the others: based on comparative studies, the authors point out that countries where governments are more highly qualified do not achieve better economic performance, that governments do not last longer, etc. (Carnes and Lupu, 2016, p. 144). Finally, the growing role taken by civil society, far from democratizing the political field, gives even more power to unelected graduates.

These fractures, both social and political, erode the legitimacy of the meritocracy of degrees; they fuel in particular a certain resentment and a loss of confidence of the less educated electorate in politics and its capacity to influence it. The authors thus convey a strong message through their work: politics cannot be meritocratic. To do this, they start from the Platonic model: in the latter, as they recall, the philosopher-kings are not authorized to have personal property or property. This makes it possible to avoid what Michael Young had well anticipated with his dystopia, namely the society of “winners take all” : In The Rise of Meritocracypublished in 1958, the British sociologist shows that if education, power, and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a few, meritocracy can only result in a social heredity which undermines the legitimacy of the diploma, political representation and, in finesocial cohesion. It is the superposition of social, educational, economic and political divisions that threatens social cohesion.

This is why, for Bowens and Wille, even if it may be legitimate in other spheres such as the scientific field or professional organizations, meritocracy has no place in politics. They illustrate this thesis with the metaphor of the ship: if it is important that the ship’s captain be competent, as well as the crew, should the latter decide, on behalf of all the passengers, the voyage as well as the destination? Paradoxically, while Plato saw meritocracy as the solution to Athenian populism, current academic meritocracy seems to lead straight to populism. The very end of the book cites some solutions that could be brought to this aporia of democracy, whether through the development of civic education, the use of drawing lots for participation in assemblies or even compulsory voting.

It is regrettable that the authors use a “macro oriented and explanatory” method, as they define it: this consists mainly of observing the variation of major synthetic indicators of opinions according to the country and the level of education of the respondents. The use of multivariate methods would undoubtedly have made it possible to more finely disentangle the specific effects of education from the effects of social positioning (in this case, education would only be the sign of other forms of social domination). It is also a shame that the differences between the content of the training courses studied are not more widely used, even if this would undoubtedly have led to limiting the scope of the comparison. In any case, the work has the merit of tackling the question of the meritocratic model, the legitimacy and limits of which are rarely explored. Both the systematic nature of the divisions observed across different countries and the importance of the question raised – that of the political legitimacy of an educational meritocracy – make the analysis so interesting.