DP20260 The Other First Wave: Elite Conflict and Democratization in Agrarian Autocracies
Social conflict theory holds that first wave industrializing autocracies democratized when an incumbent rural elite was challenged by an urban bourgeoisie. We argue that a capitalist rural middle class (RMC) in agrarian autocracies could also push for democratization to level the economic field with the incumbent elite, when power shifts in the RMC's favor. We test this argument in precolonial Egypt from 1866 to 1882, using the universe of speeches of members of parliament (MPs). We find that after Egypt's 1876 default that arguably weakened the landed elite, MP speeches on democratization increased substantially. This increase was greater among RMC MPs from cotton-productive constituencies, due to the higher elite conflict over labor in these areas. After 1876, these MPs also pushed for capitalist and welfare-oriented economic reforms. Our study challenges the notion that agrarian economies were predisposed to autocracy in the first wave of democratization.
