FINDEM investigates three intersecting political trends in emerging market democracies: the rise of the middle class, financial development, and financialisation. In particular, it examines their implications for the changing political-economic dynamics of and discourses surrounding financial governance, social provisioning, the expectations and aspirations of middle classes, and democratic consolidation. Our point of departure is that financialisation is not simply imposed from above but is shaped, reinforced and challenged by reciprocal political-economic relationships between states, corporations and emerging middle classes.

States around the world have long intervened to attempt to grow or engineer middle classes as both a political imperative and a source of economic growth. However, as the logics of global financial capitalism have spread to the Global South, at a time that the space for traditional developmentalist policies has narrowed, these developmental and social policy interventions have become increasingly financialised. This dynamic echoes trends in rich countries, albeit with local and regional variation, shaped by contextual factors such as state capacity, economic prosperity, and socio-political conditions.

To understand the political-economic entanglements between the rise of middle classes and financialisation in emerging market democracies, this project employs an innovative overarching conceptual lens of the ‘politics of financial citizenship’. That is, how do ordinary citizens access, participate in, and mobilise around the governance of the financial system, and how does this affect political dynamics at large. This lens raises several important questions which this project will investigate through cross-national comparative analyses of Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Kenya:

• How does the ‘rise’ of middle classes, and associated changes in financial practice and behaviours, impact financial policymaking in emerging market democracies?
• What is the relationship between the expectations and aspirations of these emerging financial consumers and citizens and the emergence of new constellations of financial and social policy provision in emerging market democracies?
• In what ways does the rise of new middle class financial consumers and citizens reshape democratic politics more broadly in emerging markets?

First, the project will comprehensively map the emergence of financialised middle classes in emerging market democracies, their financial strategies and aspirations. This part of the research programme will be achieved through collating cross-national data sets on middle classes’ levels and forms of participation in financial activities and through original financial behaviour surveys.

Second, the project will systematically assess the impact of middle classes on financial policymaking and social policy provision. We will investigate the intersection of statist designs and emerging market middle classes’ aspirations for social protection and mobility through financial market participation. This part of the project will examine policy documents such as government financial development plans, using content analysis and topic modelling. We will also conduct expert interviews to deepen our understanding of state designs, as well as participant observation to understand everyday citizens' financial practices and aspirations.

Third, we will critically interrogate contentious middle class political mobilisations around emerging discourses on financial governance and citizenship. This will include examining the growing prominence of financial matters in driving political mobilisation through case studies on the privatisation and financialisation of key forms of social provisioning throughout the life cycle, including investments; education, health and housing finance; and pensions.

Overall, the project aims to contribute to debates on the role of middle classes in processes of financialisation and democratic consolidation, especially with regard to how they unfold in the Global South.