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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. The AutocraticMiddle Class -- 2. State Dependency andMiddle-Class Demand for Democracy -- 3. The Post-CommunistMiddle Classes, the State, and Democratization -- 4. Rethinking theMiddle-Class Protest Paradigm -- 5. Choosing toWork for the State -- 6. Revolution, Democratic Retrenchment, and theMiddle Class -- 7. Aligning theMiddle Class with Autocracy: Rhetoric and Practice -- 8. Conclusion -- Appendix I: Regression Results -- Bibliography -- Index

Scholars have long viewed the middle class as an agent of democratization. This article provides the first rigorous cross-national analysis of middle class regime preferences, systematically investigating the importance of an authoritarian state's economic relationship with the middle class. Using detailed survey data on individual employment histories from 27 post-communist countries, I show that, under autocracy, state-sector careers diminish support for democracy, especially among middle class professionals. The results are robust to changes in the measurement of both the middle class and democracy support. I also show that neither selection nor response bias, redistributive preferences, communist socialization, or transition experiences can explain the results. The findings imply that a state-supported middle class may, in fact, delay democratization.

AbstractWhile a large literature recognizes that economic crises threaten the stability of electoral autocracies, we know relatively little about how citizens form economic perceptions and how they attribute blame for worsening conditions in these regimes. To gain traction on these questions, I exploit subnational variation in economic performance across Russia's regions during a recent downturn, combining regionally representative surveys of more than 67,000 voting‐age respondents with data on growth and unemployment. Contrary to conventional wisdom that citizens are passive consumers of propaganda, I show that they extract objective economic information from personal experience and local conditions. Moreover, I find that they give greater weight to this information where regional party dominance makes economic performance a clearer indicator of the ruling party's competence and when they believe the media are biased. These results suggest limits on illiberal regimes' ability to exploit informational asymmetries to bolster popular support during economic downturns.

A large literature expects rising middle classes to promote democracy. However, few studies provide direct evidence on this group in nondemocratic settings. This article focuses on politically important differentiation within the middle classes, arguing that middle-class growth in state-dependent sectors weakens potential coalitions in support of democratization. I test this argument using surveys conducted at mass demonstrations in Russia and detailed population data. I also present a new approach to studying protest based on case-control methods from epidemiology. The results reveal that state-sector professionals were significantly less likely to mobilize against electoral fraud, even after controlling for ideology. If this group had participated at the same rate as middle-class professionals from the private sector, I estimate that another 90,000 protesters would have taken to the streets. I trace these patterns of participation to the interaction of individual resources and selective incentives. These findings have implications for authoritarian stability and democratic transitions.

What role does propaganda play in the information politics of authoritarian societies, and what is its relationship to censorship? What have we learned from rival accounts in recent literature about why states produce it? While regimes clearly invest in propaganda believing that it is effective, there is still much to learn about whether, when, and how it actually is effective. We first discuss some of the tensions inherent in distinguishing between persuasive and dominating, soft and hard, propaganda. We then review efforts to understand the conditions under which propaganda changes attitudes and/or behavior in terms of propaganda's content, relational factors, aspects of the political environment, and citizens' own predispositions. We highlight the need for more research on propaganda in authoritarian settings, especially on how patterns of its consumption may change amid crises, technological shifts, and direct state interventions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 27 is June 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.