Among the historical cases, two of the patterns of democratization were shaped by the goals and strategies of elite strata, that is, middle- and upper-class groups. The popular classes in general and the working class in particular had little or no effective role. In Middle-Sector Democratization, reform occurred when the “outs” demanded political inclusion, but these petitioners were middle-sector groups, not the working class. The working class came to be included essentially by default. The second pattern, Electoral Support Mobilization, occurred as a result of incumbent projects: democratization was not a result of the “outs” trying to get in, but the outcome of strategies of those already in. Electoral Support Mobilization was a strategy pursued by political parties and groups with the goal of partisan mobilization in the context of electoral competition or support mobilization around a “national” question.

What was the position of the working class in these patterns? In some cases, these events occurred at a very early stage of industrialization, prior to the emergence of class-conscious workers acting as a group, articulating working-class grievances, and advancing working-class demands in a fight for democracy. This factor of timing, examined at greater length in Chapter 5, is important; however, artisans did play a key role in France in 1848, suggesting that working-class participation does not necessarily depend on a greater development of the proletariat or more modern forms of unionization.