Important considerations for the study of social movements and democratization relate to class formation, class-based consciousness raising and the ensuing competing visions for the “proper” organization of democracy. With this in mind, and in light of Colombia’s Peace Agreement signed in 2016, it is valuable to understand more deeply the instability of democratization efforts during the second half of the twentieth century. The understanding of the middle classes as essential to the formation of democratic societies is reviewed in Makers of Democracy, putting into question how democracy is imagined. This book surveys the Colombian middle classes during the second half of the twentieth century, providing insights into their self-understanding as the class that had the “right to rule.” Disputing both the oligarchs and the popular classes, the middle classes viewed themselves as the wealth and job creators, as well as the necessary class for a “proper democracy” to develop (28). Makers of Democracy encourages us to rethink democracy and the role of the middle classes, with conflicting forms of domination as a central part of how that democracy was envisioned.

Part 1 follows the development of a middle-class democratization agenda, inseparable from the efforts of the National Front government and the Alliance for Progress, in order to avoid political radicalization and the spread of communism. In this, the middle classes developed a democratic project committed to maintaining gender stratifications, unequal distribution and ownership rights, free market ideologies, and a strong hierarchy. This, as the book later argues, paved the way for the neoliberal turn near the end of the century (226). The book demonstrates how this middle-class vision became common sense. Missing from this account, however, is the racialized character of the democratic imagination in Colombia. While the author effectively demonstrates the gendered ideology and the masculine authoritarian character of the democratic imagination in Colombia’s middle classes, how did Afro-Colombians and indigenous peoples fit into the democratization agenda of the middle classes?

In Part 2, Makers of Democracy traces the process of middle-class radicalization through the development of class consciousness–raising organizations such as the Movimiento Aliado de la Clase Media Económica de Colombia (Allied Movement of the Colombian Economic Middle Class, or MOCLAM) (142). Additionally, it is argued that middle-class sectors were radicalized through encountering the poor rural and urban classes while working in development agencies connected to the Alliance for Progress. Contrary to the modernization theory in which they were trained, many came to understand the structural obstacles for poor people trying to overcome their poverty. This caused division in the middle classes as a consciousness was developed in certain sectors not as middle-class but rather as petit bourgeois (172). Some middle-class sectors even went the route of armed conflict with the formation of urban guerrilla movements such as the M-19 (181).

Unfortunately, Makers of Democracy does not further develop the lasting impact of the M-19, the urban and middle-class guerrilla movement that was made up of professionals from various sectors. This is a shame, because the M-19 played a fundamental role in negotiating Colombia’s political constitution in 1991. An analysis of the connections between the 1991 Constitution and democratization as imagined by these middle classes would make an important contribution to this book.

Closing out the final chapter, the violent repression the petit bourgeois movements for social change underwent is brought to light. Sectors of the middle class opposed to the radicals were often involved or at least complicit in the process. From abductions to torture, the radicalized petit bourgeois were to be normalized as “proper” middle-class professionals: “And if they did not comply then, it was just democratic to eradicate such improper petit bourgeois radicals” (250). The author importantly demonstrates this legacy and the success of the neoliberal middle-class vision as the “archetype of peace as violence, cohesive society as a classed hierarchy, and democracy as a dictatorship of capital” (254).

Makers of Democracy contributes to the understanding of how democratic institutions, cultures, and imaginations have specifically developed in Colombia and generally in Latin America. The middle classes, as the foundational mark of a democratization process, held competing class visions and conflicting frames of domination. The ensuing conflicts constituted the struggle for democracy in the second half of the twentieth century in Colombia. The book leaves opportunities to explore further the author’s arguments, especially regarding issues of race, and the lasting legacies of middle-class guerrilla movements such as the M-19. Makers of Democracy should make an impact for those interested in further understanding the formation of democracies, the competing class-based claims and visions for how democracies should be organized, and the realities around struggles for democracy.