Racial Politics and Nationalism: The Case of South Africa

Abstract

This paper addresses itself to the politics of race as a sub-field of the sociology of race relations. It offers a conceptual framework for use in the sub-field by formulating a new concept called `racial politics' and reformulating the concept of nationalism to link it with racial politics as defined. This is done with a view to casting light on certain theoretical and historical issues in the study of South African race relations, including (1) the importance of identifying different patterns of interaction between race and politics; (2) the identification of the conflict in South Africa as not simply a racial conflict; (3) seeing the use of racial categories for political mobilization by subordinate racial groups in South Africa as the result of the imposition of racial distinctions rather than from characteristics inherent in race itself; (4) recognizing that race and nationalist politics are connected but not identical; and (5) realizing that nationalisms based on race can in fact be racially inclusive.