The Expanding Polity: Theorizing the Links between Expanded Higher Education and the New Politics of the Post‐1970s

In this article, I argue that the expansion of higher education worldwide has had important effects in restructuring the political system of affluent democracies. A large literature has developed that describes how democracy has been “downsized” (e.g., lower voting rates). This, I argue, is one impact of expanded higher education. But there is another less‐noticed effect that is just as important. Modern democratic polities have expanded so that they are now turbocharged with social movements, nongovernmental organizations, and other kinds of citizen organizations. I theorize in this article about how the expansion of higher education has produced these contradictory and perhaps temporary effects.