Marketization,Class Structure,and Democracy in China: Contrasting Regional Experiences

After two and half decades of market reforms in China, the question of whether reforms have created favourable social conditions for democracy and whether the country's emerging entrepreneurial class will serve as the democratic social base have become hotly debated issues in both academic and policy circles. Based upon an analysis of two regions – Sunan and Wenzhou, the two prototypical local development patterns in China – the article argues that different patterns of economic development have produced distinct local level social and political configurations, only one of which is likely to foster the growth of democratic practices. It suggests that China's political future is largely dependent upon the emerging class structure and class relations that reform and development have produced. If the market reforms and economic development only enrich a few (like the Sunan case), then the possibility of democratic transition will likely be very bleak. Nonetheless, the possibility of a brighter alternative exists, as demonstrated by the Wenzhou case. These arguments thus link China's political transition to critical social conditions, echoing Barrington Moore's influential work on the social origins of democracy and dictatorship.