123 research outputs found
White politics: Opportunity or constraint
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 19 March 1990. Not to be quoted without the Author's permission.The context within which political conflict plays itself out in
South Africa has changed dramatically since FW de Klerk's speech
to the opening of parliament on 2 February this year. The wide-ranging
announcements have impacted on all political actors
operating both within and outside the country. For the white
political parties in South Africa, one of the consequences of the
speech has been the disturbance of the traditional alignments
and relationships between them. Some analysts now argue that
South Africa has already seen Its last white election and
conclude that not only has the Conservative Party no chance of
ever gaining power, but that the Democratic Party must Inevitably
crumble under the pressure of an accommodation between the NP
and the ANC. Gerrit Viljoen's recent statement that the NP was
“not very likely to be in control” in ten years time reinforces
this line of analysis (Citizen 7 February 1990).
These are some of the conventional wisdoms colouring the current
perspectives of "white" politics. This paper takes issue with
some of these perspectives by examining the dimensions of the
fluidity In white politics and evaluating the potential role
that changing white political orientations may play in the newly
emerging politics in South Africa. The analysis of the likely
trends in white politics is based on the election and referendum
results during the decade of the 1980s. White political
attitudes remain an important factor especially since F.W. de
Klerk has committed himself to holding either a referendum or an
election to endorse any new constitution
Socio-economic conditions and political violence in South Africa: a brief exploratory analysis
Paper prepared for Urban Futures Research, University of Stellenbosch, 22 April, 198
Community development and the rural African employee
Paper delivered at the Personnel Conference for the Timber industry, Pietermaritzburg, 7th-8th November, 1978
Factors in the persistence or decline of ethnic group mobilisation: a conceptual review and case study of cultural group responses among Afrikaners in post-apartheid South Africa
The candidate has two major linked interests. One is to reconcile competing explanations of ethnicity, and the other is to explore the factors underlying ethnicity in the light of a case study of the rise and decline of ethnic mobilisation among white Afrikaners in South Africa. For many observers the recent apparent "decomposition" of Afrikaner nationalist mobilisation has been surprising, and the factors associated with this trend were expected to contain insights relevant to the theoretical debate. The first part of the thesis is a review of key aspects of literature which offers alternative explanations of ethnic attachments and mobilisation. It commences with a theme-setting example of a reconciliation of alternative viewpoints. At the end of the literature review a series of propositions is offered, suggesting the utility of an integration of alternative perspectives. The case study of Afrikaner ethnic mobilisation commences with a historical overview of the emergence of Afrikaner ethnic nationalism, from the early colonial settlement up to the present. Thereafter a wide range of empirical, survey-based evidence is presented, including exploratory factor analyses, covering patterns in the cultural, racial, socio-economic and political attitudes of Afrikaners, comparing their responses with those of other South Africans. An account of recent political change and the responses of Afrikaners to the events is given. In the final chapter conclusions drawn from the evidence are presented as further propositions in a broader theoretical context. The fragmentation of Afrikaner ethnic nationalism is found to be associated with the bureaucratization of ethnicity during the period of apartheid rule, ambivalence on group boundaries, the usurpation of cultural identity by race, and a breakdown of internal coordination processes which ethnic mobilisation appears to require. At the same time a core of ethnic commitment, substantially independent of its material and political utility, is found to persist, surrounded by a wider compound of racial, cultural and political consciousness. Alternative scenarios of probable future developments are tentatively offered. The analysis appears to support the initial argument that ethnic mobilisation involves full combinations of the processes which competing theories usually pit against one another. The process of ethnic mobilisation involves a variable incorporation of elements of class, group status and honour and political activation, in which identity commitment, co-ordinating agencies and ethnic boundary-construction interact as defining and integrating elements
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