Book review: diploma democracy: the rise of political meritocracy by Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille

In Diploma Democracy: The Rise of Political Meritocracy, Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille examine how Western democracies are shaped by educational inequalities that lead to gaps in political participation and governments being dominated by academic elites. While less sure of some of the authors’ solutions for these ‘diploma democracies’, this is a convincing account of the influence of education on political inequality in Western Europe today, writes Jameel Hampton. Diploma Democracy: The Rise of Political Meritocracy. Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille. Oxford University Press. 2017.