خلاصة:
Objective: Based on Huntington’s theory of transition to democracy, it is expected to witness occurrence of democratic systems following the emergence of a new middle class. The main purpose of the present study is to analyze the role of the new middle class in the transition to democracy and review the reasons for not-materialization of the process of transition to democracy in Egypt and Bahrain, in spite of the rise of the new middle class in these countries. Methods: By using Huntington’s theoretical framework, adopting a comparative method, and collecting information from ratified scientific resources and secondary data, this research comparatively analyzed the process of democratization in Egypt and Bahrain. Results:Findings of this article indicates that representations of the new middle class, such as the growth of per capita income, higher education, bureaucracy, and communication development indexes, as well as changes in social values, have been increased. However, the process of transition to democracy, in its different types of deformation, displacement, and disintegration, has encountered with serious obstacles in both countries. Conclusion: Following the victory of the Egyptian revolution in February 2011, the firstphase of transition to democracy is successfully achieved by the collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. But, after the coup de ta against President Mohamed Morsi, the pseudo-authoritarianism of the Mubarak era was reproduced by military intervention on 3 July 2013, and the negative role played by external power. Also, entering to the second phase of "strengthening democratic institutions" has been aborted. Similarly, the process of democratization in Bahrain has been stopped in its first phase, that is, the overthrow of dictatorship rule, because of cultural barriers, the rentier nature of the state, and patron-client relationship existed between state and the new middle class.AlsoIn both countries, foreign agents have acted to reinforce authoritarianism.
ملخص الجهاز:
Explaining the Role of the New Middle Class in the Process of Transition to Democracy; A Comparative Study of Egypt and Bahrain Hassan Ahmadi 1 PhD student in Political Science, University of Isfahan, Iran.
Findings: The findings of this article show that despite the growth of new middle class symbols, such as increased per capita income, development of higher education indicators, bureaucracy, and communications, and transformation in societal values, the transition process in terms of metamorphosis, displacement, and collapse in the two countries Bahrain and Egypt at the current stage has faced serious obstacles.
New middle class, transition to democracy, political change, Egypt, Bahrain Date of article receipt: 27/10/1398 Final acceptance date: 16/3/1399 Introduction After Adam Smith 1 in the book The Wealth of Nations, Karl Marx 2 was the first individual to use the criterion of ownership or non-ownership of the means of production for classification through the study of the concept of the middle class, and after that, Max Weber 3 developed this concept and extended it to include non-economic dimensions.
In this regard, in the present research, Egypt and Bahrain are evaluated as the cases for comparison, the new middle class as the unit of analysis, political change (transition to democracy) as the variable of comparison, and indicators such as the expansion of higher education, the expansion of bureaucracy, the expansion of communications and media, economic growth, and transformation in societal values as the comparative observations.
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