The Autocratic Middle Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Bryn Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Development Strategies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Popular Pressure ◽  
Communist Countries

This chapter seeks to expand the grasp of authoritarian resilience and bottom-up pressures for democratization in states where economic growth is increasing the size of the middle-class. It explains why and under what conditions growth of the middle-class may not increase popular pressure on regimes to democratize. It also looks at a wide array of survey data on the political preferences and behaviors of the middle-classes in the post-communist countries. The chapter emphasizes that a variety of development strategies can drive an expansion of the middle-class, which differ in their effect on the formation of democratic constituencies. It examines multiple pathways to expansion of the middle-class that lead to greater support for democracy.

State Dependency and the Limits of Middle Class Support for Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 001041402093808
Author(s):  
Bryn Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Response Bias ◽  
State Dependency ◽  
State Sector ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Economic Relationship ◽  
National Analysis ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
Cross National

Scholars have long viewed the middle class as an agent of democratization. This article provides the first rigorous cross-national analysis of middle class regime preferences, systematically investigating the importance of an authoritarian state’s economic relationship with the middle class. Using detailed survey data on individual employment histories from 27 post-communist countries, I show that, under autocracy, state-sector careers diminish support for democracy, especially among middle class professionals. The results are robust to changes in the measurement of both the middle class and democracy support. I also show that neither selection nor response bias, redistributive preferences, communist socialization, or transition experiences can explain the results. The findings imply that a state-supported middle class may, in fact, delay democratization.

A conjunctural account of upper- and middle-class support for Rodrigo Duterte

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 651-673
Author(s):  
Marco Garrido
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Scene ◽  
Over Time

Philippine scholars have largely interpreted Duterte’s support among the upper and middle class as a rejection of the previous administration’s incremental reformism. They also point to the growing appeal of a politics of discipline. These explanations are insufficient. They cannot tell us why the upper and middle class supported Duterte when they did in 2016. The Aquino administration was not the first to disappoint and Duterte hardly the first avatar of discipline to appear on the political scene. In this article the author argues that we need to understand support for Duterte as having crystallized over time with respect to a series of events. Specifically, we need to account for the trajectory of democracy in the Philippines and the contingency of support for him. By placing this support in conjunctural context, we are better able to understand the upper and middle classes’ predisposition to ‘strong leaders’ and their turn to Duterte in 2016.

Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Political ◽  
French Society ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Political Body ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Peasant Revolt ◽  
Important Notion

This chapter deals with democracy and Rousseau's participative polity. The demands of positive freedom are also those of the political body, constituted of citizens, to organize itself. The chapter explores this ever-important notion. No freedom can be complete without a fully democratized state — and this includes the subjection of the economy to public rule. The national dimension of the movement is clearly established. Although it is largely working class, it has involved many other segments of society and can best be described as a movement of the small-middle stratum of citizens — either lower-middle class or upper-working class — what is described as 'the small-mean class'. It has been foreshadowed by police tactics against the banlieues; it has involved the most modest parts of French society directly, who have largely contributed to the movement, the middle classes, who have been commenting on it and trying to portray it as a jacquerie, or peasant revolt, and the upper classes, who have seen their iconic boulevards closed off and vandalized.

How Exposure to Violence Affects Ethnic Voting

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 345-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dino Hadzic ◽  
David Carlson ◽  
Margit Tavits
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Community Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Ethnic Parties ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Post War

How does wartime exposure to ethnic violence affect the political preferences of ordinary citizens? Are high-violence communities more or less likely to reject the politicization of ethnicity post-war? We argue that community-level experience with wartime violence solidifies ethnic identities, fosters intra-ethnic cohesion and increases distrust toward non-co-ethnics, thereby making ethnic parties the most attractive channels of representation and contributing to the politicization of ethnicity. Employing data on wartime casualties at the community level and pre- as well as post-war election results in Bosnia, we find strong support for this argument. The findings hold across a number of robustness checks. Using post-war survey data, we also provide evidence that offers suggestive support for the proposed causal mechanism.

scholarly journals Rationalising Racial Inequality: Ideology, Hegemony and Post-Racialism among the Black and South Asian Middle-Classes

Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Meghji ◽  
Rima Saini
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
The Political ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Racial Progress

Drawing upon 38 qualitative interviews with Black and South Asian middle-class individuals we theorise post-racialism as a hegemonic ideology. While research tends to focus on how racialised people experience racial inequality, some of our participants rationalised such inequality through a post-racial understanding. This post-racial understanding involves commitments to racial progress and transcendence, the view that racism is no longer a societal issue; race-neutral universalism, the belief that we live in a colourblind meritocracy; and a moral equivalence between anti-racism and anti-racialism, allowing for forms of ‘cultural’ racial prejudice. We examine how these components of post-racialism travel from the political macro-ideological level, to the micro-phenomenological level. Through this analysis we argue that these post-racial rationalisations are not the result of false consciousness, but reflect how post-racialism, as a hegemonic ideology, can manifest itself as common-sense and consistent with particular individuals’ histories of mobility and success.

Revolution, Democratic Retrenchment, and the Middle Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-192
Author(s):  
Bryn Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Orange Revolution

This chapter provides a background on Ukraine when it was struggling to consolidate democracy. It examines existing theories that expect human capital formation and a growing middle-class to enhance the autocratic middle-class prospects for democratization. By focusing on the case of Ukraine, it also explores whether dependence on the state for economic opportunities and life chances moderates middle-class demands for democratic institutions. The chapter uses a panel survey spanning the Orange Revolution, which assesses how the distinctive political orientations of different groups within the middle-class affected the nature of protest coalitions during Ukraine's 2004 democratic breakthrough. It makes use of a difference-in-differences design to demonstrate that reliance on the state for economic opportunity caused the political preferences of new labor market entrants to diverge.

Indian middle-class support for Modi may prove fickle

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Political Responses

Significance Proponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic agenda await the political responses of India's urban middle classes. It was above all the urban middle-class vote at the 2014 general elections that took Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA), to its sweeping victory. Impacts BJP could become isolated by relying too much on the middle-class vote. Its lack of interest in rural voters is reflected in its neglect of agrarian strife. Middle-class voters seek quality employment, which Modi's economic policy is failing to generate.

scholarly journals The Political Orientation of the Middle and Lower Classes in Iran (1997-2013)

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Ali Abolali Aghdaci ◽  
Parisa Khorasaniesmaeili
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Independent Variable

It is well-known that there is a positive relationship between class position and the political orientation of citizens. Insuch a way that the class position is considered as an independent variable and political orientations as dependentvariables. In this research, we will try to survey the political orientations of middle and lower classes in Iran in thetwo states of Reformist and Principals, namely, the presidency of Khatami, and Ahmadinejad. The main question isthat the growth of the middle class tends to make progress in countries, but why the quantitative growth of this classin Iran, has not led to proper progress in our country? The hypothesis of this article is as follows: The growth of themiddle class in the advanced countries is linked to their democratic political structures, while in the third worldcountries due to the rentierity, the middle classes are made by governments. Therefore, they cannot actindependently and be effective in the political and cultural development of countries.

Der Aufstieg von Ansar Allah im Jemen.

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (182) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Sascha Radl
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Agricultural Modernization ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
The Government ◽  
Yemen Arab Republic

At first sight, the civil war in Yemen seems to be a sectarian conflict between shia and sunni Islam. In contrast, this article explores the political economy dimensions of the conflict. During the 1970s, the northern Yemen Arab Republic has seen the emergence of a middle class based on foreign remittances, thus increased consumption, economic growth and agricultural modernization in particular. An economic crisis and new oil discoveries in the 1980s lead to a turn-around of the relations between the former powerful middle class and the government which was now able to co-opt the opposition. The subsequent inability to find a solution for the economic problems and the consequences of the reunification in the 1990s lead to externally forced neoliberal structural adjustment, including financial austerity, and as a result to social decline. Ansar Allah provided an alternative order and therefore the group was able to mobilize the middle class in opposition to the regime.

scholarly journals Precarization of the Middle Class of the New Russia: What are the Results of a Study of Heterogeneous Middle Strata?

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Vasiliy A. Anikin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Latent Class Analysis ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Lower Stratum ◽  
Monitoring Survey ◽  
Middle Strata ◽  
Bayesian Latent Class Analysis

The paper aims to study the heterogeneity of the middle classes in the new Russia. Drawing from the monitoring survey data collected by the Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, 2015 and 2018, the author employed Bayesian latent class analysis to detect Russian middle class and its main subgroups. In 2015 and 2018 it counted 58% and 61% of the population, respectively. Precarization of the middle is occurring in the lower stratum of the middle class, which comprises up to half of the middle class. The paper aims to study the heterogeneity of the middle classes in the new Russia. Drawing from the monitoring survey data collected by the Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, 2015 and 2018, the author employed Bayesian latent class analysis to detect Russian middle class and its main subgroups. In 2015 and 2018 it counted 58% and 61% of the population, respectively. Precarization of the middle is occurring in the lower stratum of the middle class, which comprises up to half of the middle class.

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