ETHNICITY AND VOTING PATTERNS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract There is some controversy concerning the role of ethnicity in South African electoral behavior. Since the society is segmented on ethnic lines it is to be expected that ethnicity would play a crucial role in affecting political choices. Some writers have gone so far as to suggest that ethnicity is the only significant factor affecting voting preferences. The controversy arose at a time when Goodman's method of log-linear analysis for hierarchical models had not yet been developed. This method provides the most powerful tool available for the multi-variate analysis of categorical data. A re-analysis of previously published research using Goodman's method shows that ethnicity is not the only significant factor having a bearing on voting preferences. The first four-way table of voting preferences in South Africa is presented. The order of importance of the variables affecting party choice is: (1) ethnicity (2) socio-economic status (3) age of the voter. The recursive model suggested by the analysis explains approximately 98 per cent of the data.     

U.S. SOUTH AFRICA POLICY IN THE 1980s: CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT AND BEYOND

In this article no attempt is made to defend the Reagan administration's six-year-old policy of constructive engagement toward the Republic of South Africa, for to all but a few diehards the policy is indefensible. Instead, my response to Beres contains three components. First, I take issue with his dismissal of constructive engagement as no more than a ruse by which "to make apartheid palatable" to the American people, and argue that the purpose of the policy was to enable the Reagan administration to take credit for achieving a Namibia independence settlement. Second, I show that Beres' plea for popular opposition to an unjust policy comes too late, for a large number of Americans, during the past two years in particular, have been doing his bidding. Finally, I conclude with an assessment of the nature of the policy debate over South Africa that such popularity has prompted, in which direction U.S. South Africa policy now appears headed, and what issues, if any, remain to be resolved.     

SOUTH AFRICAN REALITIES AND REALPOLITIK

South Africa is a country of major and powerful tribes, of many sub-tribes, of one large non-tribe, and of two articulate communities (the Asians and mixed-race coloureds). Chief among the tribes in their history and their right to control tracts of South Africa are the white Afrikaner tribe led by Mr, Vorster himself and the black Zulus led by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi. Both dominate, but are feared and resented by, the rest of their respective racial communities. The two are, and have been for hundreds of years, each other's prime adversaries…. To advocate one man, one vote in a unitary state as the solution to such a patchwork of racial resentments and history frankly seems a nonsense….     

THE POPULATION TURNAROUND IN RURAL AND SMALL TOWN AMERICA

Noting the continuing rural in-migration of the 197Os, the most prominent of contemporary rural demographers looks at some initial interpretations from the emerging 1980s census data. This in-migration to all types of rural areas reverses a trend of several decades and signals new challenges for rural areas. Some observable population patterns are discussed including the predominant influx of white upper income groups and those on government transfer programs, including retirees.