Racism, Class and Political Action

Abstract

In many advanced industrial societies one aspect of contemporary race and ethnic relations has attracted an inordinate amount of attention in recent years, namely, the racialisation of political life that is evident in both national and local political environments. This in itself is not a surprising trend. It could be argued after all that the interface between political and social relations is perhaps the key area we have to address if we are to understand the underlying reasons for the resurgence of political racism and the possibilities of social and political mobilisations against racism. But what is surprising is the extent to which political institutions, including political parties and representative institutions, have recently become preoccupied with questions about race and immigration in quite diverse national political situations. In this chapter, therefore, we want to focus our attention on two key questions: first, why has political life become inextricably racialised of late? Second, what is the likely impact of this process on the morphology of race and racism in advanced industrial societies in the future?