The Making of the Chinese Middle Class: Small Comfort and Great Expectations (The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy) - 9781349953806

This book analyses the making of the Chinese middle class that started in the 1990s using a constructivist approach. With the development of the Chinese economy, a new group of middle wage earners appeared. Chinese social scientists and state institutions promoted the idea that China needs a middle class to achieve modernization. Middle class members are definedùand define themselvesùas good consumers, educated people, politically engaged but reasonable citizens. As such, the making of the middle class is the result of three convergent phenomena: an attempt to define the middle class, a process of civilization, and the development of protest movements. The making of the Chinese middle class, Rocca argues, is a way to end the stalemate that modern Chinese society is facing, in particular the necessity to democratize without introducing an election system.

• | Author: Jean-Louis Rocca
• | Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• | Publication Date: Jun 16, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 294 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Political Science
• | ISBN-10: 1349953806
• | ISBN-13: 9781349953806