Peasants and the Process of Building Democratic Polities: Lessons from San Marino

This essay challenges the conventional wisdom that democracy must be built upon the foundation of an established middle class, a belief forthrightly asserted in Barrington Moore's resolute dictum of "no bourgeois, no democracy". Taking a lead from Aristotle who thought peasants to be the best social group on which to build a political order that would preserve liberty, I consider the hypothesis that peasants can construct democratic systems of government. The little-known little country of San Marino provides a case study. Its long history serves to demonstrate that the driving force behind the establishment of democracy need not be an educated and wealthy middle class but that a poor and uneducated peasantry can provide this impetus. This is a finding that calls into question the very formula that Western governments, scholars and institutions such as the IMF and World Bank routinely prescribe for Third World countries.