Citizens of a nation with low level of education can still embrace democracy

A number of pro-Beijing commentators have written in the Hong Kong media, arguing that China is still largely uneducated and therefore not ready for democracy. I question the validity of this point of view.

Is there in fact a correlation between education and democracy?

When English speakers colonised North America, most of the people were illiterate.

Yet from the very beginning, from the 1600s onwards, throughout the colonies local villagers elected their aldermen and selected their leaders democratically.

While development of true universal suffrage took until the 1960s to really be complete, the United States has more than 400 years of democratic experience, and during much of this time people were not well educated.

Between 1972 and 1975, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan.

While in Kapisa province as a science teacher trainer, I lived in a small village where the shopkeepers, several dozen located along the side of the tree-lined main dirt road, were all illiterate.