The Autocratic Middle Class: How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy

Bryn Rosenfeld

Published by Princeton University Press 2021

The Autocratic Middle Class

How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy

Bryn Rosenfeld

Volume 11 in the series Princeton Studies in Political Behavior

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691209777

Overview
Contents

About this book

How middle class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and contributes to authoritarian resilience

Conventional wisdom holds that the rising middle classes are a force for democracy. Yet in post-Soviet countries like Russia, where the middle class has grown rapidly, authoritarianism is deepening. Challenging a basic tenet of democratization theory, Bryn Rosenfeld shows how the middle classes can actually be a source of support for autocracy and authoritarian resilience, and reveals why development and economic growth do not necessarily lead to greater democracy.

In pursuit of development, authoritarian states often employ large swaths of the middle class in state administration, the government budget sector, and state enterprises. Drawing on attitudinal surveys, unique data on protest behavior, and extensive fieldwork in the post-Soviet region, Rosenfeld documents how the failure of the middle class to gain economic autonomy from the state stymies support for political change, and how state economic engagement reduces middle-class demands for democracy and weakens prodemocratic coalitions.

The Autocratic Middle Class makes a vital contribution to the study of democratization, showing how dependence on the state weakens the incentives of key societal actors to prefer and pursue democracy.

Author / Editor information

Bryn Rosenfeld is assistant professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University.

Reviews

"In The Autocratic Middle Class, Rosenfeld takes on one of the holy grails of comparative politics: the notion that a growing middle class increases the likelihood of democratization. The middle class, she argues, is not a monolithic entity; in authoritarian regimes, those employed in the state sector are likely to be less supportive of democracy than those in the private sector. A must-read for scholars of post-communist politics and for anyone hoping to understand democratization in the modern era."—Joshua A. Tucker, director of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
1. The AutocraticMiddle Class Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. State Dependency andMiddle-Class Demand for Democracy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3. The Post-CommunistMiddle Classes, the State, and Democratization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
4. Rethinking theMiddle-Class Protest Paradigm Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
5. Choosing toWork for the State Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
6. Revolution, Democratic Retrenchment, and theMiddle Class Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
7. Aligning theMiddle Class with Autocracy: Rhetoric and Practice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
8. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Appendix I: Regression Results Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269