Replication Data for: The Impact of University Attendance on Partisanship

Survey research shows that those with university degrees are more left-liberal along a number of dimensions than their peers without higher education. There is even some evidence to suggest a growing social and political cleavage centered on educational attainment. Yet, claims about the liberalizing effect of universities on political ideology and partisan identification rest on observational evidence where many assumptions are required to reach causal inference. This may account for conflicting findings in published research. In this study, we enlist a unique research setting in Romania that allows for a fuzzy regression discontinuity design separating those qualified to matriculate to university from those unqualified to do so. We find that university attendance causes more liberal party preferences along the cultural dimension of party politics – though not along the economic or left-right dimensions of party conflict.