Conclusion: Implications for policy and research

Since the mid-twentieth century academic and intellectual understandings of the role of mass publics in democracy has been Schumpeterian in its conclusion that extensive political participation by the poor or the working classes would be antithetical to democracy. This worldview arose from three major strains of research that informed and reinforced each other. One built on the rise of authoritarian politics in Europe between the first and second World Wars, a paradigm that attributed antidemocratic values to mass publics. Analysts concluded that should mass publics participate extensively in politics, authoritarian regimes would be the inevitable outcome, because the values and attitudes of poor people would foster such an outcome (Adorno et al. 1950; Lipset 1960, 1981; Schumpeter 1943). Later research on voting and citizen attitudes in the West concluded that working classes tended not to participate in politics as much as those of higher socioeconomic status (Almond and Verba 1963; Campbell et al. 1960; Milbraith 1965; Verba and Nie 1972; Verba, Nie, and Kim 1978). Third, research on the impact of development on regime type linked the emergence of democracy to economic modernization and prosperity (Almond and Verba 1963; Apter 1965; Lerner 1958). These findings combined into a worldview holding that the poor tend to hold authoritarian rather than democratic values; normally, they are rather politically inert. From these suppositions, it was deduced that only by reducing the political import of the poor – that is, by minimizing the political engagement of the poor while working, first, to increase the wealth of whole societies – democracy would be better assured of stability in the future.

Duke Scholars

Author Anirudh Krishna Sanford School of Public Policy