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What Is An Urban Middle Class Achieve Democracy?

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Thailand is among other developing countries where an urban middle class has initiated large-scale demonstrations in opposition to an elected populist government; this has occurred in Bolivia, the Philippines, and Venezuela. The 2009 military coup in Hondouras against Zelaya's elected administration shares many similarities to the political circumstances in Thailand, as it was mostly the middle-class who took to the streets of Tegucigalpa in support of the coup. Similarly, in China, the rise of the middle class may thwart any further moves towards democratization, as the urban elite fear a loss in status if a rural, peasantry majority ruled politics.

Why might an urban middle-class in a developing country turn against majority rule, despite social scientists arguing that this class is the precursor of democracy? …show more content…
Lipset's modernization theory has aroused a vibrant academic debate concerning the interceding factors/variables that might produce this relationship. His own view was that education and urbanization are side effects of economic development, and they encourage not only the attenuation of extremist views, but also a middle class that will have demands for political participation through democratic political parties (4).

The influential work of Barrington Moore argues that the middle class is the decisive variable for democratization: "no bourgeoisie, no democracy" (5). He argues that the growth of liberal democracy comes when the bourgeoisie class debilitates the power of the upper classes and feudal economic system. Moore posits that if the middle-class revolution is successful, it will result in a capitalistic democratic state that assimilates the nobility and peasantry as social

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