Measuring education's effect on peace: Literacy rates and their relationship to stability and conflict

Education is an important topic in the field of conflict resolution since an educated population is less likely to resort to violence. As educational attainment is often proxied by a clinical definition of literacy rates, this paper will test the correlation between literacy rates, the drivers of conflict, an index of conflict risk, and actual observations of conflict in the last eight years in a series of regression analyses. The three drivers of conflict/stability are social development, government type and economic strength. The conflict risk measure is the Center for International Development and Conflict Management's Peace and Conflict Instability Ledger. Observations of violent conflict are taken from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset. Since literacy rates are a recognized proxy for educational attainment, and education plays an important role in conflict resolution and prevention, these findings could point to a need for a better understanding of contextual literacy in educational development.