211 research outputs found

    Towards rupture or stasis? An Analysis of the 1981 South African general election

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    African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 24 August, 1981.The results of the 1981 white general election in South Africa seemed paradoxical to many observers. After three decades in which white politics appeared dominated by the unchallengeable hegemony of the ruling National Party, white party politics seemed to have taken on a new turbulence and uncertainty. The Sunday Times reported, "Nat Voters Bolt to the Right", while the Transvaler headlined a "Leftwards swing". Very few seats actually changed hands, yet many commentators sensed that the election was a watershed. The confusing aspects of the election resulted from the play of contradictory political and social forces. This paper contends that the old ethnic-based class alliances which formed the basis of the white South African party system are unravelling. Though power did not change hands, the 1981 election traced the outline of a possible class realignment of white political forces, with potentially far-reaching consequences. In the aftermath, nothing seemed to have changed, but nothing would ever be quite the same. To illuminate the changes underway, we will begin with a discussion of the background to the election, then skip ahead to consider the patterns of change evident in the election results. This is followed by an examination of survey data to discern the emerging class division, and of how the strategy of the parties promoted or retarded its expression. The paper concludes with the implications of the new trends in the white electorate for the future of white politics in South Africa

    A world of networks: power, political culture and collective action in black South African communities, 1945-1965.

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    Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice and Culture, 13-15 July, 1994

    Black power, white press; literacy, newspapers, and the transformation of township political culture

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    African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 10 May, 1993Black political mobilization in South Africa has largely been explained by factors which are either structural or external to the communities involved: falling wages and employment, the contradictions of school and township administration, and anticolonial wars on the country's borders. Social and political movements, leaders, and processes within black communities have received short shrift. The political consciousness of different sections of black society has frequently been neglected or read off from class positions. The institutions, organizations, and discourses which shape them have been ignored or treated as tools of the status quo. In particular, the movement which did the most to initiate the black political renaissance, the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), has been written off as a "group of petit bourgeois intellectuals" without links to the masses. Yet the resulting accounts have failed to adequately explain the forms and gaps of the re-emergence of mass resistance over the past two decades or to predict or periodize the development of national political lif

    Vigilantes, clientalism, and the South African State

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    African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 30 September, 1991On the afternoon of July 22, 1990, residents of Sebokeng watched nervously as a procession of vans and busses threaded its way towards the African township's stadium, carrying men to a rally called by Inkatha. Rumours of an attack by members of the conservative Zulu movement were rife, and tension mounted during the meeting. When it ended, several hundred local youths confronted the Inkatha supporters as they came out. Firebombs were hurled at an Inkatha member's house and the two groups started fighting, but police quickly dispersed the youths with tear gas. Then hundreds of Inkatha men surged through the dirt streets, breaking windows and stabbing and shooting people, until they reached and stormed a workers' hostel controlled by political opponents... This paper argues vigilantism is the continuation of clientelist politics by other means, to paraphrase Clausewitz's dictum on war. Drawing on South African experience and other cases, counter-revolutionary vigilantism is defined as the unlicensed use of private violence to defend an oligarchic clientelist state under popular challenge ..

    Enduring Mental Health Morbidity and Social Function Impairment in World Trade Center Rescue, Recovery, and Cleanup Workers: The Psychological Dimension of an Environmental Health Disaster

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    Background The World Trade Center (WTC) attacks exposed thousands of workers to hazardous environmental conditions and psychological trauma. In 2002, to assess the health of these workers, Congress directed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to establish the WTC Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program. This program has established a large cohort of WTC rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers. We previously documented extensive pulmonary dysfunction in this cohort related to toxic environmental exposures. Objectives Our objective in this study was to describe mental health outcomes, social function impairment, and psychiatric comorbidity in the WTC worker cohort, as well as perceived symptomatology in workers’ children. Methods Ten to 61 months after the WTC attack, 10,132 WTC workers completed a self-administered mental health questionnaire. Results Of the workers who completd the questionnaire, 11.1% met criteria for probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 8.8% met criteria for probable depression, 5.0% met criteria for probable panic disorder, and 62% met criteria for substantial stress reaction. PTSD prevalence was comparable to that seen in returning Afghanistan war veterans and was much higher than in the U.S. general population. Point prevalence declined from 13.5% to 9.7% over the 5 years of observation. Comorbidity was extensive and included extremely high risks for impairment of social function. PTSD was significantly associated with loss of family members and friends, disruption of family, work, and social life, and higher rates of behavioral symptoms in children of workers. Conclusions Working in 9/11 recovery operations is associated with chronic impairment of mental health and social functioning. Psychological distress and psychopathology in WTC workers greatly exceed population norms. Surveillance and treatment programs continue to be needed

    Enduring Mental Health Morbidity and Social Function Impairment in World Trade Center Rescue, Recovery, and Cleanup Workers: The Psychological Dimension of an Environmental Health Disaster

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    Background The World Trade Center (WTC) attacks exposed thousands of workers to hazardous environmental conditions and psychological trauma. In 2002, to assess the health of these workers, Congress directed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to establish the WTC Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program. This program has established a large cohort of WTC rescue, recovery, and cleanup workers. We previously documented extensive pulmonary dysfunction in this cohort related to toxic environmental exposures. Objectives Our objective in this study was to describe mental health outcomes, social function impairment, and psychiatric comorbidity in the WTC worker cohort, as well as perceived symptomatology in workers’ children. Methods Ten to 61 months after the WTC attack, 10,132 WTC workers completed a self-administered mental health questionnaire. Results Of the workers who completd the questionnaire, 11.1% met criteria for probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 8.8% met criteria for probable depression, 5.0% met criteria for probable panic disorder, and 62% met criteria for substantial stress reaction. PTSD prevalence was comparable to that seen in returning Afghanistan war veterans and was much higher than in the U.S. general population. Point prevalence declined from 13.5% to 9.7% over the 5 years of observation. Comorbidity was extensive and included extremely high risks for impairment of social function. PTSD was significantly associated with loss of family members and friends, disruption of family, work, and social life, and higher rates of behavioral symptoms in children of workers. Conclusions Working in 9/11 recovery operations is associated with chronic impairment of mental health and social functioning. Psychological distress and psychopathology in WTC workers greatly exceed population norms. Surveillance and treatment programs continue to be needed

    An Approach to Parameterization of the Oceanic Turbulent Boundary Layer in the Western Pacific Warm Pool

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    Vertical profiles of zonal velocity and the dissipation rate ε of the turbulent kinetic energy obtained during the Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) are analyzed in the context of planetary boundary layer relationships previously derived from atmospheric measurements. The presence of a barrier layer and the striking effect of increased dimensionless shear and ε at the bottom of the surface mixed layer of the ocean, features often observed in the western Pacific warm pool area, are consistent with the boundary layer laws. The gradient Richardson number Ri is found to be a convenient parameter for scaling the nonstationary and horizontally heterogeneous mixed layer in the warm pool area. The approach to parameterization of the turbulent eddy coefficient within the mixed layer as a function of Ri is tested as part of a one-dimensional model. A comparison between the observed and modeled upper ocean temperatures for two COARE examples shows a reasonable agreement over a wide range of wind speed conditions
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