@workingpaper{Asongu2014bp,
title = {The Role of Lifelong Learning in Political Stability and Non-violence: Evidence from Africa},
author = {Jacinta Nwachukwu C Simplice A. Asongu},
editor = {African 2014 Governance and Development Institute WP/29/14},
url = {http://www.afridev.org/RePEc/agd/agd-wpaper/The-Role-of-Lifelong-Learning-in-Political-Stability-and-Non-violence.pdf},
year = {2014},
date = {2014-08-01},
abstract = {Purpose – Education as a weapon in the fight against conflict and violence remains widely
debated in policy and academic circles. Against the background of growing political instability in
Africa and the central role of the knowledge economy in 21st century development, this paper
provides three contributions to existing literature. It assesses how political stability/ non-violence
is linked to the incremental, synergy and lifelong learning effects of education.
Design/methodology/approach – We define lifelong learning as the combined knowledge
acquired during primary, secondary and tertiary education. Principal component analysis is used
to reduce the dimensions of educational and political indicators. An endogeneity robust dynamic
system Generalized Methods of Moments is used for the estimations.
Findings – We establish three main findings. First, education is a useful weapon in the fight
against political instability. Second, there is an incremental effect of education in the transition
from secondary to tertiary schools. Third, lifelong learning also has positive and synergy effects.
This means that the impact of lifelong learning is higher than the combined independent effects
of various educational levels. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the
period 1996-2010.
Practical implications – A plethora of policy implications are discussed, inter alia: how the drive
towards increasing the knowledge economy through lifelong learning can be an effective tool in
the fight against violence and political insurgency in Africa.
Originality/value – As the continent is nursing knowledge economy ambitions, the paper is
original in investigating the determinants of political stability/non violence from three dimensions
of education attainment: the incremental, the lifelong learning and a synergy effect.},
keywords = {Lifelong learning; Stability; Development; Africa},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {workingpaper}
}