Middle Class and Democratization under Authoritarian Rule

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

Understanding the role of the middle class is essential for explaining why some regimes remain stable while others face pressures for change. This dissertation examines how structural conditions shape the middle class’s demand for democracy in post-Soviet authoritarian countries. The middle class plays a central role in the main theories of democratization: its resources, education, values, and position between elites and lower classes are seen as key factors shaping political systems. Yet research has mainly focused on the supply side of democratization, such as institutions and elites, while the demand side – the middle class's preferences – has been understudied. Moreover, macro-level studies often treat the middle class as a homogeneous group and have examined it less often with individual-level data. This dissertation addresses this gap by analyzing how structural conditions – social mobility, economic crises, corruption, and values – shape middle-class demand toward democracy in post-Soviet societies. These factors are crucial because they determine the legitimacy and stability of governance, as well as the willingness of citizens to support or challenge existing political systems. The study challenges the traditional view of the middle class as a homogeneous driver of democratization by showing its internal heterogeneity and its varying role under authoritarian rule. The post-Soviet region is highly relevant for comparative analysis. The countries share a legacy of communist authoritarian rule and a centralized economy. The transition to a market economy and rapid growth created a new middle class but also produced mixed outcomes in terms of democratization. The primary data comes from cross-national surveys. Methodologically, the study applies multilevel regression models to link individual attitudes with macroeconomic and institutional indicators.