Bryn Rosenfeld's "The Autocratic Middle Class"

Session Submission Type: In-Person Author meet critics

Session Description

Conventional wisdom holds that the rising middle classes are a force for democracy. Yet in countries like Russia and China, where the middle class has grown rapidly in recent years, authoritarianism has deepened. In The Autocratic Middle Class: How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2020), Bryn Rosenfeld challenges a basic tenet of democratization theory, showing how the middle classes can actually be a source of support for autocracy and authoritarian resilience. White-collar professionals employed in the state administration, the government budget sector, and state enterprises often comprise a substantial share of the middle class in autocratic settings. The political preferences and behavior of this state-dependent middle class differ from what classical theories of democratization lead us to expect. Where the state supplies the principal avenues of social mobility into the middle class, material incentives based on employment drive middle class reticence about democracy while workplace mobilization limits the expression of democratic demands. 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 speaks to classic work in comparative politics--from modernization to Barrington Moore, redistributive, and values-based theories of democratization--showing how dependence on the state weakens the incentives of key societal actors to prefer and pursue democracy. The book also helps to explain how authoritarian leaders consolidated power across the ex-Soviet region over a period when the middle class was rapidly expanding; why anti-Putin protests in Russia have thus far failed to achieve a critical mass; why it has been so difficult to build stable democracy in Ukraine; as well as why development doesn’t necessarily lead to democratization.

The panel will begin with a short presentation by Rosenfeld relating key themes of the book to the next steps in her research agenda. In this ongoing project, Rosenfeld seeks to better understand citizens’ attitudes toward the risks and uncertainty that define democratic transition. Though clearly central to such consequential political behaviors in an autocracy as non-voting, opposition voting, protest, and even the sincere expression of anti-regime sentiment, we still lack a clear understanding of the origins and malleability of citizens’ risk attitudes as well as answers to questions such as how framing by parties and elites affects citizens’ risk calculus. One facet of this project describes the link between ordinary citizens’ risk preferences and their political behavior using original panel surveys conducted in Russia and Ukraine. The study’s design provides one of the first dynamic portraits of voters’ attitudes toward risk in a nondemocratic setting. More broadly, the project aims to shed light on the psychological bases of activists’ and citizens’ support for the status quo and, conversely, participation in processes of democratization and political change.

After the presentation, critics will discuss the book and broader research agenda. Ben Ansell, David Samuels, and Daniel Treisman have graciously agreed to comment.

Sub Unit

• Division 44: Democracy and Autocracy

Chair

• Bryn Rosenfeld Cornell University

Presenters

• Ben William Ansell University of Oxford

• David J. Samuels University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• Daniel S. Treisman University of California, Los Angeles