Understanding Revolution in the Middle East: The Central Role of the Middle Class

The paper argues that the changing interests of the middle class can explain the authoritarianism of the past and the more recent shift to democracy in some, but not all the countries of the Middle East. The framework proposed includes the evolving class structure and related class preference for economic and social policies. It compares the possible coalitions between classes that can form either an autocratic bargain or a democratic coalition, and it explores the conditions under which a shift from one sort of equilibrium to the other can occur. It then reviews the evidence in two areas. First, it looks directly at changes in opinion in Egypt, Iran, and Morocco and asks whether these are consistent with the predictions of the theory. Second, it examines the corporate sector in Egypt around the time of the revolution, in order to understand the performance of “crony capitalism” and to evaluate whether it may have affected the incentives of the middle class to defect.  

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