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Bryn Rosenfeld: The autocratic middle class: how state dependency reduces the demand for democracy
The global expansion of the middle class, documented by World Bank data, has been accompanied by arguments that it will demand better governance and democracy in line with Barrington Moore’s observation that “no bourgeoisie, no democracy.” According to Acemoglu and Robinson (2006), “almost all revolutionary movements were led by middle class actors” (p. 39). Samuel Huntington (1991) argues that “in virtually every country the most active supporters of democratization came from the urban middle class” (p. 67). Rosenfeld’s book tests this argument using data from Russia and other post-Soviet states. Each of the book’s eight chapters examines a problematic aspect of the actions of the middle class in authoritarian societies. The methodology is interdisciplinary with an eclectic mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods including interviews, participant observation, field studies, and official data. The book’s framework questions modernization and distributive theories of democratization that accord the middle class a central role.
The book’s main argument is that the middle class in autocracies is not what its liberal advocates make it out to be. It is often the backbone of the authoritarian regime. The author argues that the rise of a state sponsored middle class may well strengthen authoritarianism and delay democratization. Rosenfeld points to the deliberate creation of and use of the middle class by post-Soviet governments. Using empirical data, Rosenfeld shows that the vast majority of middle class people in several post-Soviet countries are government employees. The share is highest in Azerbaijan (87%) and Belarus (81%) and lower in Russia (59%). Clearly, the public sector continues to dominate the career choices and ambitions of the middle classes of post- Soviet countries.
Indeed, the creation of such classes was an open and declared state policy in Kazakhstan. In 2004, then Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev described the middle class as the part of society “which has something to lose, which does not want a revolution, does not want changes in policy and laws and is a stabilizer and bulwark of the state” (quoted in Rosenfeld 2021, p. 197). A Kazakh social scientist included non-opposition as a criterion of belong to the middle class. “One of the criteria of belonging to the middle class … is that [such a person] never opposes the existing order” (p. 197). The Nur Otan Party in Kazakhstan described it mission in these very terms as well: “our key task is to create a strong middle-class that will serve as the basis for a robust economy and sociopolitical stability” (p. 193).
Consequently, it is safe to argue that the country’s middle class is a client of the state. Kazakhstanis not the only post-Soviet country to decide on expanding the middle class. Russia’s strategy 2020 aims to expand the size of the middle class to more than half the population. Rosenfeld argues that Russia’s plans are similar to those of Kazakhstan, and most of the Russian middle class works in the public sector. Its motives to democratize are thus limited along the lines described as the “feudalization” of the bourgeoisie in reference to the co-option of the French middle class by the crown, which delayed the revolution and thus democracy as claimed by Barrington Moore.