Originally published in 1987 this book argues that South African politics reflect the changing ways in which the region has been incorporated into the world economy. It traces the effects of a process of industrialisation under the dominance of mining on the other sectors of the economy, and on the evolution of the class structure. It shows how a coercive labour system influenced the definition of political and social rights in racial terms and profoundly influenced the development of authoritarian controls over blacks in the urban and rural areas from the 1920s onwards. The book includes an essay on the different strands in the reform movement and speculates about the social and political forces which underlined the political changes which began to take place during the mid-1970s.
Alf Stadler was Professor of Politics at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.
1. Revolution, Reform and Repression in the 1970s and 1980s: The Quickening Rhythm 2. National, Regional and International Bases of the Apartheid State 3. The Political Economy of Industrial South Africa 4. White Power in the Twentieth Century: From Party Government to Bonapartist Rule 5. The Logic of Labour Coercion: Influx Control and Political Domination 6. Of Uncivil Government: The Administration of Urban Black South Africa 7. Race and the Allocation of Urban Space: Segregation and Apartheid in the Cities 8. Apartheid in the Countryside: Politics and Government in the Homelands and National States 9. Movement and Organisation in the Politics of the Underclasses 10. Revolution and Reform: The Emergent Forces.
‘…an unusually stimulating contribution to our understanding both of what significant historical factors led to the South African apartheid political economy and the salient features of the contradictions in the system.’ Alexander Arthur, Tennessee University, USA.
