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This suggests that transitions from communist regimes to democracy gradually managed by the old regime itself may be infeasible because the overwhelming advantages possessed by the regime over potential opposition groups would give the ruling elites no incentives to exit power, even through a negotiated process. The growth of autonomous, organized social forces is more difficult in such a system even when economic development may have created a large number of individuals with middle-class socioeconomic attributes. Democratic transition can occur most likely as a result of regime collapse because when the ruling elites are eventually forced to undertake even limited political reforms, the regime may have become so enfeebled by misrule and politically delegitimized that it no longer possesses the capacity to manage a gradual opening.

The slow progress in democratic reform in China may thus be better explained by theories of democratic transition that focus on the political choices made by the ruling elites as the immediate and direct causes of regime change. After all, theories based on economic development and social structures may best explain the social and economic contexts in which democratic institutions may emerge and function, but are not helpful in identifying the timing and exigencies of the transition. Proponents of the crucial role of the decisions made by the ruling elites in the authoritarian regime maintain that democratic transitions per se have little to do with the social structure or levels of economic development.4 Rather, such transitions take place only when the ruling elites make the crucial decision to withdraw from power, even though the political contexts in which such decisions are made vary from regime to regime.5 From the perspective of choice-based theories, we may even posit a perverse short-run negative relationship between rising levels of economic development and democratic transition: everything else being equal, the ruling elites may have less incentive to withdraw from power because rising prosperity makes their political monopoly more valuable.

More important, the authoritarian ruling elites can reap political gains from increasing economic growth because such growth helps legitimize their rule and vindicate their policies. Contrary to the assumption that high economic growth can create more favorable conditions for political opening, rising prosperity can actually remove the pressure for democratization, and frustrations with the slow speed of economic reform may force leaders to seek political reform.6 Indeed, such appears to be the case with the Chinese experience, as the following chapter on political reform will show. During the reform era, the CCP’s senior leadership was most concerned about political reform only when economic reform appeared to have stalled and growth performance was deteriorating. This was the case with Deng’s promotion of an agenda of political reform in 1986 when his economic reform initiatives were stymied by bureaucracy and growth began to falter.7

A short-term impact of rising economic prosperity on democratization also grants the ruling elites more material resources to strengthen their repressive capacity and co-opt potential opposition groups, especially counterelites. For example, the CCP’s efforts to co-opt the intelligentsia and the private entrepreneurs—the former being the leading opposition group in the 1980s and the latter a likely challenger to the party’s power in the future—were highly successful in the 1990s mainly because the rapid growth gave the CCP the economic means of political co-optation.

Yet, however salutary to the autocratic regime’s rule, rising economic prosperity can provide, at best, a short-time lift to the prospects of such regimes because of the self-destructive political dynamics inherent in an autocracy caught up in rapid socioeconomic change. To an extent, most ruling elites are aware that economic development will result in the emergence of powerful challengers to power and probably the loss of the political monopoly.