More Education = Less Terrorism? Studying the Complex Relationship Between Terrorism and Education
教育会减少恐怖主义？对教育与恐怖主义之间复杂关系的研究
In the aftermath of terrorist attacks, education is often advocated as an antidote to terrorism, the idea primarily being that education may make individuals less vulnerable to the false promises of extremist ideologies. For instance, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11, 2001, Eli Wiesel – the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate – argued:
在恐怖袭击的余波中，教育经常被提出来作为疗治恐怖主义的解药。基本的想法是，教育可以增强个人对于极端主义意识形态虚假承诺的免疫力。比如说，在2001年纽约和华盛顿特区的911恐袭发生之后，Eli Wiesel（1986年诺贝尔和平奖得主）声称：
What is it that seduces some young people to terrorism? It simplifies things. The fanatic has no questions, only answers. Education is the way to eliminate terrorism.
“究竟是什么把一些年轻人推向恐怖主义？就是因为它简单粗暴。盲从狂热者没有问题，只有答案。而教育就是消除恐怖主义的方法。”
While intuitive, the academic evidence on the terrorism-education nexus tends to be more pessimistic. On the national level, education is usually found to share little relationship with terrorism. What is more, on the individual level, there is evidence that the more educated are more likely to become terrorists.
但是，关于恐怖主义与教育之间的联系，尽管听起来很直观，但学术依据却寥寥无几。在国家层面上，人们发现，教育一般与恐怖主义联系甚微。更有甚者，在个人层面上，有证据表明接受过更高教育的人群反而更可能会变成恐怖分子。
For instance, education may fuel terrorism by raising the probability of terrorist success (i.e., the “productivity of terrorists”) through the use of high-capacity (i.e., well-educated) operatives. Indeed, due to the positive effect of individual human capital endowment on terrorist success, terrorist organizations tend to be particularly interested in selecting more educated members.
比如说，受过教育的恐怖分子会因为实行高技能（也就是受过良好教育）行动而在恐怖活动成功率（也就是“恐怖分子的生产率”）上有所增加，这样，教育可能就加剧了恐怖主义。实际上，由于个人的技能天分对于恐怖行动成功与否具有积极影响，恐怖组织特别倾向于选召受过更好教育的成员。
In our new study, we provide a framework to better understand the apparently complex interaction between terrorism and education, trying to reconcile the popular narrative that education may remedy terrorism with the prevalent academic viewpoint that education – if anything – is associated with more terrorism.
在一项新研究中，我们提出了一个理论框架来更好地理解恐怖主义与教育之间看似很复杂的关系，并且尝试调和两个观点：即教育可以纠正恐怖主义这一大众叙事，和教育只会与恐怖主义增加相联系的流行学术观点。
We argue that there is some truth to both the optimistic and pessimistic views regarding the terrorism-education nexus. The ultimate effect of education on terrorism is linked to country-specific circumstances which moderate whether the pacifying or inflammatory effects of education on terrorism prevail.
我们认为，对于恐怖主义-教育关系的悲观和乐观看法各有可取之处。教育对于恐怖主义的最终效用是与特定的国家环境相联系的，在不同的国家环境中，教育可能缓和也可能加剧恐怖主义的流行。
Education always increases the individual and society-wide prospect of socioeconomic and political participation as well as individual productivity and intellectual capacity (where the latter may further magnify individual expectations about one’s politico-economic position in society). That is, education always creates “great expectations.”
教育总是会增加个人和全社会的社会经济和政治参与度，同时也会提升个人的创造能力和才智（而后者也许会进一步提高个人对于自己在社会中政治经济地位的期望）。也就是说，教育总是会创造“远大前程”抱负。
Sound country-specific conditions help these expectations to materialize, thus reducing incentives for terrorism. For instance, more educated individuals unsurprisingly expect higher wages; however, higher wages are only likely to materialize when country-specific conditions are sound (e.g. as the economy grows, as labor market competition due to demographic pressures is limited, or as corruption and nepotism do not strongly distort labor market outcomes).
健康的特定国家状态能帮助这些理想成为现实，因此减弱恐怖主义的动机。例如，受过更高教育的人群不出意料会期望更高的薪水；然而，更高薪水只会在特定国家状态很健康时才可能实现（例如经济保持增长，因人口压力而导致的劳动力市场竞争不大激烈，或者腐败和裙带关系并未强烈扰乱劳动力市场运转）。
By contrast, when country-specific conditions are poor (e.g. slow economic growth, strong labor market competition, and distortions due to youth bulges and corrupt institutions), the same “great expectations” are likely to end in frustration, consequently facilitating recruitment to terrorist violence.
与之相反，当特定国家状态很差劲时（比如经济增长缓慢，劳动力市场竞争激烈，青年人口膨胀和制度腐败），同样的“远大前程”就很可能会以受挫告终，因此就会为恐怖分子的暴力行动提供后备力量。
Under such circumstances, education may actually facilitate mobilization by amplifying feelings of frustration and disenfranchisement that arise from unaddressed socioeconomic and politico-economic grievances and unrealized socioeconomic and political participation. This is because education is expected to make it easier for individuals to recognize injustice and discrimination, leading to the uncomfortable – but plausible – situation where more education facilitates radicalization.
这样的情况下，因为社会经济和政治经济方面的不满没有得到解决，同时社会参与和政治参与愿望没能实现，教育实际上会增强由此产生的挫折感和权利受损感，从而促进社会动员。这是因为，教育很可能会使个人更容易察觉不公正和歧视，从而导致那种令人不安却合情合理的情况：更多的教育反而促进极端化。
What is more, the highly-educated may find “careers” in terrorism particularly attractive. When country-specific conditions are poor, the rewards offered by terrorist organizations to skilled operatives (wages, political influence, but also martyrdom) may be closer to the especially high expectations of the educated about personal income and political influence than anything the regular labor market can offer.
不仅如此，高学历人群可能还会发现恐怖主义的“职业生涯”特别具有吸引力。当特定国家状况非常不堪时，恐怖组织提供给技术人员的酬劳（工资、政治影响力、还包括殉道感）会更加符合高学历人群对于个人收入和政治影响力的极高期望，这是任何常规劳动力市场都不能提供的。
We test our theoretical framework on a sample of 133 countries for the 1984-2007 period. Our findings can be summarized as follows:
我们用1984年至2007年间133个国家的样本检验了我们的理论框架。我们得出的结果可以归结如下：
- A “naïve” statistical model for the complete sample of 133 countries, we find that education – in line with the narrative of the academic literature – tends to correlate positively, albeit only weakly, with terrorism.
- 一个针对133个国家的完整样本的“幼稚”统计模型中，我们发现教育——与学术文献的描述一致——与恐怖主义趋向于正相关，尽管仅仅是弱相关性。
- To account for country-specific conditions we identify two groups of countries that differ strongly with respect to their economic, politico-institutional, and demographic conditions. Conditions in the first group are markedly poorer, exhibiting a weaker rule of law, poorer protection of human and property rights, slower economic growth, but higher levels of corruption, population growth, and inflation.
- 为了阐明特定国家状况，我们区别出经济、政治制度和人口条件完全不同的两组国家。第一组的状况明显较差，表现出较差的法治环境、人权和财产权利保护不力、经济增长缓慢、而且腐败问题更严重、人口增长过快、通货膨胀严重。
- For the group of poorly developed countries (often located in Latin America, Asia, or Sub-Saharan Africa), we find that variables reflecting lower education (primary education, literacy rate) are associated with more terrorism, while higher education (university enrollment) does not play a role.
- 在发展状态较差的这组国家（普遍位于拉丁美洲、亚洲或者撒哈拉以南非洲）中，我们发现反映初等教育水平的参数（小学教育、识字率）与滋生更多恐怖主义相关联，而高等教育水平（大学入学率）则并没有什么影响。
- For the group of countries in which conditions are more favorable, we find no positive association between lower education and terrorism. Instead, we find a negative (terrorism-reducing) and statistically significant effect of higher education (university enrollment) on domestic terrorism.
- 对于另外一组情况更好的国家，我们发现初等教育和恐怖主义之间没有什么正相关。相反，我们发现高等教育（大学入学率）对于国内恐怖主义的影响为负（即会减少恐怖主义），且这种效应在统计上很显著。 In sum, our empirical analysis thus provides support for our theoretical framework, where the eventual effect of education on terrorism depends on the presence of further moderating conditions. We argue that our theoretical framework not only explains the Middle Eastern experience of terrorism by rather well-educated terrorists, but also explains the recent series of popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, which similarly seem to have been fueled by advances in education and a lack of economic and political participation.
总而言之，我们的实证分析为我们的理论框架提供了支持：教育对恐怖主义的最终影响是由更进一步的约束条件决定的。我们认为，我们的理论框架不仅能解释中东地区产生高学历恐怖分子的恐怖主义经验，也能解释最近阿拉伯之春中的系列人民起义，两者相似，似乎都是因教育进步而经济与政治上的参与度却很低而导致的。
Similarly, historical events in the West – such as the revolutionary waves in Western Europe in the 18th and 19th century – where educational advances, when coupled with poor structural conditions, promoted instability are in line with our theoretical framework.
类似的，西方世界的一些历史性事件——比如西欧在十八和十九世纪的革命浪潮——也与我们的理论框架相一致：当时教育实现进步，同时存在糟糕的结构性条件，两相结合导致了不稳定。
Our study indicates that the linkage between terrorism and education is likely to depend on country-specific (macroeconomic, institutional, etc.) conditions. We invite future research to analyze further which country-specific conditions matter the most to the mechanics of the nexus. Also, studying the role of education content, gender disparities in education, and education inequality may prove helpful to furthering our understanding.
我们的研究表明，恐怖主义和教育的联系很可能依赖于特定国家状态（宏观经济、国家制度等）。我们期待更进一步的研究能够深层次分析究竟是哪一种特定国家状态在这一相关机制中有着最大的影响。同时，研究教育内容、教育上的性别差距和教育不平等等因素扮演的角色，也会对深化我们的理解有所助益。
From a policy perspective, our findings indicate that education produces “great expectations” and may result in “hard times” (terrorism) when those expectations are not met. This suggests that a sole strengthening of education in less developed countries may not help in the war on terror and may even prove – at times – counterproductive.
从政策角度看，我们的分析指出，教育会产生“远大前程”，而当这些抱负没有实现时，就可能导致“艰难时世”（即恐怖主义）。这提示了，在欠发达国家单独加强教育可能不会对反恐战争有帮助，甚至结果可能是——至少偶尔是——帮倒忙。
Rather, the promotion of education should be accompanied by domestic and international efforts to ameliorate poor socioeconomic, politico-institutional, and demographic conditions to make it possible for the promise of education to actually materialize.
实际情形是，提升教育水平应当伴随有国内和国际共同努力来改善社会经济上的、政治制度上的以及人口上的糟糕状态，这样才可能使得教育所许诺的希望真正变现。
翻译：Luis Rightcon（@Rightcon）
校对：沈沉（@你在何地-sxy）
编辑：辉格@whigzhou