IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2014-096.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the African Middle Class Defend Democracy?: Evidence from Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Nic Cheeseman

Abstract

Barrington Moore's famous line 'no bourgeoisie, no democracy' is one of the most quoted claims in political science. But has the rise of the African middle class promoted democratic consolidation? This paper uses the case of Kenya to investigate the attitudes and behaviours of the middle class. Analysis of Afrobarometer survey data reveals that the middle class is more likely to support the opposition and hold pro-democratic attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Nic Cheeseman, 2014. "Does the African Middle Class Defend Democracy?: Evidence from Kenya," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-096, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2014-096
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2014-096.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2008. "What Is Middle Class about the Middle Classes around the World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 3-28, Spring.
    2. Daniel Branch & Nicholas Cheeseman, 2006. "The politics of control in Kenya: Understanding the bureaucratic-executive state, 1952--78," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(107), pages 11-31, March.
    3. Benn Eifert & Edward Miguel & Daniel N. Posner, 2010. "Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 494-510, April.
    4. World Bank, 2012. "Kenya Economic Update, June 2012," World Bank Publications - Reports 26666, The World Bank Group.
    5. Easterly, William, 2001. "The Middle Class Consensus and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 317-335, December.
    6. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    7. Michael Bratton & Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2008. "Voting in Kenya: Putting Ethnicity in Perspective," Working papers 2008-09, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    8. World Bank, 2012. "Kenya Economic Update, December 2012," World Bank Publications - Reports 26660, The World Bank Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grossman, Shelby & Honig, Dan, 2017. "Evidence from Lagos on Discrimination across Ethnic and Class Identities in Informal Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 520-528.
    2. Irwan Abdullah & Hasse Jubba & Mustaqim Pabbajah & Intan Permata Sari & Saifuddin Zuhri & Saidin Ernas, 2019. "From Selfism to Indifferentism: Challenges Facing Indonesian Society and Culture, 2015–2045," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 8, November.
    3. Michael Chasukwa, 2019. "Multiple Faces of Democrats: Satisfaction with Democracy and Support for Democracy in Malawi," Insight on Africa, , vol. 11(1), pages 18-37, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cheeseman, Nic, 2014. "Does the African middle class defend democracy? Evidence from Kenya," WIDER Working Paper Series 096, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Wietzke, Frank-Borge, 2024. "Perceptions of social class in Africa. Results from a conjoint experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    3. Florencia Torche & Luis F. Lopez-Calva, 2013. "Stability and Vulnerability of the Latin American Middle Class," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 409-435, December.
    4. Matthieu Clément & Yves-André Fauré & Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous & Dominique Darbon & Éric Rougier, 2018. "Anatomie de la classe moyenne brésilienne : identification, caractérisation et implications pour les politiques publiques," Working Paper 920063e0-0208-4403-b9e7-b, Agence française de développement.
    5. C�line Bonnefond & Matthieu Cl�ment & Fran�ois Combarnous, 2015. "In search of the elusive Chinese urban middle class: an exploratory analysis," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 41-59, March.
    6. Reham Rizk & Ricardo Nogales, 2017. "Revisiting the Middle-Class Myth: Evidence From A Cross-Country Analysis of African Social Progress," Working Papers 1139, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 2003.
    7. Jean-Philippe BERROU & Matthieu CLÉMENT & François COMBARNOUS & Dominique DARBON & Yves-André FAURE & Éric ROUGIER, 2019. "L’essor des classes moyennes dans les pays en développement et émergents : une étude comparative des enjeux d’identification, de caractérisation et de politiques publiques," Working Paper d25da1cf-d9d8-4336-9930-b, Agence française de développement.
    8. Eric Rougier & Jean‐Philippe Berrou & Matthieu Clément & François Combarnous & Dominique Darbon, 2021. "Should we call it a (middle) class? A socio‐economic exploration of the Vietnamese middle‐income group," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(8), pages 1321-1345, November.
    9. Loayza, Norman & Rigolini, Jamele & Llorente, Gonzalo, 2012. "Do middle classes bring about institutional reforms?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 440-444.
    10. Sebastien Carrere & Clement Mathieu & Francois Combarnous & Gabriel Kessker & Eric Rougier & Ariel Wilkis, 2022. "The middle class in Argentina: Dynamics, characteristics and implications for public policies," Post-Print hal-03773031, HAL.
    11. Chun, Natalie & Hasan, Rana & Rahman, Muhammad Habibur & Ulubaşoğlu, Mehmet A., 2016. "The role of middle class in democratic diffusion," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 536-548.
    12. Florencia Torche & Luis F. Lopez-Calva, 2013. "Stability and Vulnerability of the Latin American Middle Class," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 409-435, December.
    13. Alessandro, Fornaroli, 2021. "Vietnam – A general study of the triangulation toward change social movements, economic development, and political changeover," OSF Preprints 8bgmu, Center for Open Science.
    14. María Edo & Walter Sosa Escudero & Marcela Svarc, 2021. "A multidimensional approach to measuring the middle class," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(1), pages 139-162, March.
    15. Walter Sosa-Escudero & Sergio Petralia, 2011. "Anatomy of Distributive Changes in Argentina," Chapters, in: Werner Baer & David Fleischer (ed.), The Economies of Argentina and Brazil, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Michael A. Clemens & Claudio Montenegro & Lant Pritchett, 2016. "Bounding the Price Equivalent of Migration Barriers," Growth Lab Working Papers 67, Harvard's Growth Lab.
    17. Angel Melguizo, 2015. "Pensions, informality, and the emerging middle class," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 169-169, July.
    18. Alain Desdoigts & Fernando Jaramillo, 2020. "Bounded Learning by Doing, Inequality, and Multi-Sector Growth: A Middle-Class Perspective," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 198-219, April.
    19. Berrou, Jean-Philippe & Clément, Matthieu & Combarnous, François & Darbon, Dominique & Fauré, Yves-André, 2020. "Anatomy of the Brazilian middle class: identification, behaviours and expectations," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    20. Vani S. Kulkarni, 2014. "Global middle class and dietary patterns: a sociological perspective," Chapters, in: Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anil B. Deolalikar (ed.), Handbook on Food, chapter 20, pages 515-538, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Policy sciences;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2014-096. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.