Economic Aspiration and Political Acquiescence: An Analysis of the Chinese Middle Class’s Support for the Political Status Quo

This thesis addresses the central puzzle presented by the “Chinese Anomaly” (Miao 2016; Nathan 2016; Liu et al. 2023): namely, why the nation’s rapidly expanding middle class—a socioeconomic group often hypothesized by classical modernization theory to be a catalyst for political change—exhibits broad support for the authoritarian political status quo. The dissertation focuses on the political acquiescence resulting from a powerful synergy between two systemic mechanisms: on the one hand, the Party-state’s systematic discursive reframing of democratic concepts and, on the other, the middle class’s socio-economic motivations—specifically, the internal psychology of precarity rooted in anxieties over social mobility and economic stability. This qualitative study utilizes a critical secondary analysis of sources pertaining to three key research streams: established international and Chinese scholarly literature, authoritative official state discourse, and expert interpretations of large-scale public opinion survey data. The analytical framework synergistically integrates rigorous thematic analysis with critical discourse analysis. This combined approach facilitates the deconstruction of the official Lexicon of Democracy, focusing specifically on the instrumental function of key concepts such as Social Harmony (社会和谐 shèhuì héxié), Common Prosperity (共同富裕 gòngtóng fùyù), Deliberative Democracy (协商民主 xiéshāng mínzhǔ), and Whole-Process People’s Democracy (全过程人民民主 quán guòchéng rénmín mínzhǔ). The analysis of the underlying studies suggests that the state successfully employs this sophisticated discourse to redefine the parameters of legitimate governance, thereby effectively neutralizing liberal democratic critique. This external ideological project is strongly reinforced by the middle class’s deeply rooted psychology of precarity (Chen and Lu 2011; Wang and Sun 2022), which in turn compels them to prioritize stability, order, and continued material gains over political liberalization. By analyzing and interpreting state narratives within comparative political debates, this thesis offers a nuanced understanding of the phenomenon. The study goes beyond descriptive accounts of middle-class political compliance, ultimately clarifying the complex dynamics underlying authoritarian resilience in the context of advanced socio-economic development.