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This article explores the influence of Protestant missionaries on male-female educational inequalities in colonial India. Causal mechanisms drawn from the sociology and economics of religion highlight the importance of religious competition for the provision of public goods. Competition between religious and secular groups spurred missionaries to play a key role in the development of mass female schooling. A case study of Kerala illustrates this. The statistical analysis, with district-level datasets, covers colonial and post-colonial periods for most of India. Missionary effects are compared with those of British colonial rule, modernization, European presence, education expenditures, post-colonial democracy, Islam, caste and tribal status, and land tenure. Christian missionary activity is consistently associated with better female education outcomes in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the influence of Protestant missionaries on male–female educational inequalities in colonial India. Causal mechanisms drawn from the sociology and economics of religion highlight the importance of religious competition for the provision of public goods. Competition between religious and secular groups spurred missionaries to play a key role in the development of mass female schooling. A case study of Kerala illustrates this. The statistical analysis, with district-level datasets, covers colonial and post-colonial periods for most of India. Missionary effects are compared with those of British colonial rule, modernization, European presence, education expenditures, post-colonial democracy, Islam, caste and tribal status, and land tenure. Christian missionary activity is consistently associated with better female education outcomes in both the colonial and post-colonial periods.

Why are some former colonies more democratic than others? The British Empire has been singled out in the debates on colonialism for its benign influence on democracy. Much of this scholarship has focused on colonialism's institutional legacies; has neglected to distinguish among the actors associated with colonialism; and has been nation-state focused. Our subnational approach allows us to isolate the democracy effects of key actors operating in colonial domains-Christian missionaries-from those of colonial powers. Missionaries influenced democracy by promoting education; education promoted social inclusivity and spurred social reform movements. To make our case, we constructed colonial and postcolonial period district datasets of India and conducted panel analysis of literacy and democracy variations backed by case studies. The findings challenge the conventional wisdom of the centrality of the effects of British institutions on democracy, instead also highlighting the missionaries' human capital legacies. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the influence of Protestant missionaries on male-female educational inequalities in colonial India. Causal mechanisms drawn from the sociology and economics of religion highlight the importance of religious competition for the provision of public goods. Competition between religious and secular groups spurred missionaries to play a key role in the development of mass female schooling. A case study of Kerala illustrates this. The statistical analysis, with district-level datasets, covers colonial and post-colonial periods for most of India. Missionary effects are compared with those of British colonial rule, modernization, European presence, education expenditures, post-colonial democracy, Islam, caste and tribal status, and land tenure. Christian missionary activity is consistently associated with better female education outcomes in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. (British Journal of Political Science/ FUB)

Exposure to democratic values has been regarded as a significant factor in the diffusion of democracy, and has also been linked through conditionality to assistance from Western agencies. Diffusion and the targeting of such assistance in a country of the size of Russia is likely to be uneven, however, implying uneven effects, as public authorities, private businesses and the broader citizenry are exposed to varying levels of influence according to the level of diffusion and assistance applied in particular regions. Statistical analysis shows regional exposure levels to be higher in regions that lie in closer proximity to the West, even when urbanization, gross regional product and other domestic variables are held constant. This further implies that methodological approaches to democratization based on assessing the 'whole nation' miss the significance of geographical factors in post-communist political change, which will need to be addressed in future analyses. Adapted from the source document.

The article examines the impact of geographical proximity to the West and of Western aid on democracy in Russia's regions and advances ageographic incrementalisttheory of democratization. Even when national politicians exhibit authoritarian tendencies, diffusion processes and targeted foreign aid help advance democratization at the subnational level in postcommunist states and other settings. The authors make this case by conducting process-tracing case studies of democratic institution building in two northwestern border regions and statistical analysis of over one thousand projects that the European Union carried out in Russia's localities over fourteen years. They find that the EU shows commitment to democratic reform particularly in, but not limited to, regions located on its eastern frontier. Over time, this, as well as diffusion processes from the West, positively affects the democratic trajectory of the respective regions even if they had been more closed to begin with compared to other regions.