collapsedsquid:

We find that democratization is much more likely to follow mass protest movements that are dominated by the urban middle classes — and even more so when industrial workers are protesting. These groups often combine a strong preference for democracy (especially in urbanized societies) with the capacity to push through democratizing changes.

Industrial workers, in particular, can use unions, international labor networks and social democratic parties to coordinate powerful challenges against dictatorial regimes. Here, we agree with influential, in-depth studies of specific European and Latin American countries, which highlight the historical role of labor movements in pushing for universal suffrage and competitive multiparty elections.

Yet the experiences in these case studies might have been atypical. Ours is the first study to investigate systematically whether the social composition of protest movements matters for democratization in a global sample of countries. We investigated all major mass protest movements around the world from 1900-2006, and recorded who dominated each movement — industrial workers, urban middle classes, rural laborers, ethnic groups, religious groups, etc.

The strongest finding in our study is that protest movements dominated by industrial workers outperform all other protest campaigns in bringing about democracy. Industrial worker campaigns also clearly outperform situations without any mass protest campaigns. There is some evidence that urban middle class movements are associated with democratization, but it is weaker than the evidence of the importance of industrial workers.