Will a Rising Middle Class in the Global South Reshape Politics?

Summary

Discussions of the “global middle class” in the early 21st century argue that this group expanded in the Global South from 1990 to 2010 as a product of economic growth. The above discussion echoes the 1960s debate regarding the relationship between economic development and democracy. Middle classes have grown in the Global South, though their economic characteristics are diverse and their members are at risk of downward mobility due to precarious employment patterns and periodic economic shocks. The expansion of gated communities and shopping malls in cities of the Global South has generated patterns of cross-class segregation that leads members of the middle classes to engage in exclusionary practices toward the poor. However, some members of the middle classes engage in progressive urban social movements. While scholars in the 1960s were optimistic that a growing middle class would encourage democratization, subsequent scholarship has shown that middle classes display inconsistent support for democracy and engage in diverse forms of political expression. These expressions include both participation in formal politics and engagement with social movements. Additionally, middle classes are internally divided based on religious affiliation, racial and ethnic identities, birth cohort membership, and occupation, leading to competing political identities across middle-class subgroups. This diversity suggests that efforts to predict how the middle classes may reshape politics should attend to national historical and political legacies to understand the distinctive pathways of middle-class politics in the Global South.