Many countries with high levels of democracy are also wealthy. This suggests that economic development and democracy are closely related. However, economic growth does not automatically lead to democracy. China, for example, has grown rapidly, but it is still not a liberal democracy. This raises an important question: Can economic development alone explain how democracy emerges and survives? Malawi is a useful case. It is a poor country, yet it has kept a multiparty democracy for more than thirty years. Malawi’s democracy survived not because of economic conditions, but because citizens built it themselves through collective action and voting. That experience prepared them to defend it during the 2019-2020 election crisis, when they turned to the courts instead of only the streets.

Seymour Martin Lipset (1959) offers a well-known explanation. He argued that economic development creates conditions that support democracy. As a country grows richer, education levels rise and the middle class expands. These changes make democracy more likely. Malawi does not fit this pattern easily. Malawi became independent in 1964. Hastings Kamuzu Banda then ruled for decades, and in 1966 the country formally became a one-party state. When democracy arrived in the early 1990s, Malawi was not growing. It was struggling. According to the IMF, average real GDP growth fell from 6% in 1989-1991 to -3% in 1992-1994. Yet Malawi became a multiparty democracy. It has since held many elections and experienced peaceful changes of power. Freedom House (2026) now rates Malawi as “Free,” with a score of 68 out of 100. This is the puzzle. If wealth were the main driver of democracy, a poor country like Malawi would likely have returned to authoritarian rule. Instead, democracy appeared and survived without economic development. This does not mean Lipset is wrong. It means his explanation is not enough by itself.

If economic conditions are not enough, what else matters? I look at the role of citizens and society. I describe this as a civic-cultural foundation of democracy. It has four parts. The first is active civil society: citizens and groups who take part in politics and act together. The second is democratic political culture: support for democratic rules, pluralism, and participation. The third is political socialization: learning about political rights through experience. The fourth is public trust in institutions, such as courts. These parts are connected. Citizens who participate learn, and citizens who trust institutions are more willing to use them. The next sections show how these parts appear in Malawi’s history.

The first part appears in the early 1990s. Under Banda, political opposition was heavily restricted. Mitchell (2002) describes this environment as a “culture of silence”. In 1992, Catholic bishops published a pastoral letter that criticized the government. It raised issues of accountability and human dignity. This challenged the silence. Students protested, workers went on strike, and new political groups appeared. These events were not isolated. Together, they showed that citizens were willing to challenge a government that had ruled for decades. Economic hardship made people angry at the government. But what matters here is not simply that people were angry. Civil society turned individual complaints into collective political pressure. In a 1993 referendum, about two-thirds of voters supported a multiparty system. The result showed that many Malawians no longer accepted one-party rule. In 1994, Banda lost the first multiparty election. In other words, democracy was not simply handed down by the government. Citizens helped create it through collective action.

The 1990s also taught citizens something. A democratic transition does more than replace a leader. People directly experienced how to demand rights, act together, and choose their government through a referendum and an election. This is political learning. A citizen who has joined a strike or voted in a referendum understands that political rights can be used, not only read about. Rakner (2021) argues that the democracy movement left a pro-democratic legacy for civil society. This legacy gave citizens a base they could use again when their constitutional rights were threatened. So the experience of creating democracy also prepared citizens to defend it.

That preparation mattered during the 2019-2020 election crisis. Serious problems were raised about the 2019 presidential election. The opposition and civil society challenged the result. They protested, but they also used legal channels. This is an important change. They did not only protest in the streets. They raised their complaints through democratic institutions. A protest can show anger. A court can turn that anger into a legal decision. In 2020, the Constitutional Court annulled the election and ordered a new one. The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the decision. Dionne (2024) argues that civil society and the courts acted as forces against attempts to expand presidential power. Public trust also mattered. According to Afrobarometer, most Malawians saw the courts as impartial and trustworthy in late 2019, and 76% said the president must always obey the laws and courts. The survey was taken before the ruling, so citizens already saw the courts as a legitimate place to settle conflict. In June 2020, a fresh election was held, and Lazarus Chakwera won. This case differs from 1992 in an important way. In 1992, citizens were trying to create a new system. In 2019-2020, they were trying to defend an existing one. Citizens helped protect democracy by using institutions, and institutions helped protect democracy by responding according to the law.

Comparing the two periods shows a clear pattern. The actions were different, but they shared important features. Both involved political participation, political rights, pluralism, and respect for democratic procedures. Both were responses to authoritarian behavior. I call this a democratic political culture. It means supporting democratic norms and acting on them. It also means democracy does not stay alive automatically after it is created. Citizens and institutions must support democratic procedures again and again. The pattern in Malawi is create, learn, and protect.

This does not mean economic conditions are unimportant. Economic instability can make it harder for democratic institutions to work. Economic hardship can also increase anger at governments and make political mobilization more likely. Even so, hardship did not create democracy by itself. Citizens and institutions turned that hardship into a democratic outcome. Citizens had to organize, and institutions had to respond. My argument would be weaker if Malawi had become significantly wealthier or developed a much larger middle class between 1994 and 2019, because economic development could then help explain the survival of democracy. It would also be weaker if the people and organizations that defended democracy in 2020 had no connection to the democratic movements of the 1990s. This would challenge the idea that citizens learned from earlier struggles and used that experience to protect democracy in 2020. Malawi refines Lipset’s argument rather than rejecting it. This means we need to pay attention to civic and cultural foundations, including citizens’ political awareness, participation, and willingness to defend democratic values. These foundations help explain how people can protect democracy even when economic conditions remain difficult. Democracy is not simply something that economic development produces. It is also something that citizens and institutions create and protect.