Voting Preferences of Protesters and Non-protesters in Three South African Elections (2014–2019): Revisiting the ‘Ballot and the Brick’

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the relationship between protest and voting by revisiting Booysen's ‘ballot and the brick' thesis. Booysen argued that, in South Africa, protest forms part of a ‘dual repertoire' that poor communities use to fight for service delivery between elections but that protesters, ultimately, remain loyal to the African National Congress (ANC). Since Booysen first elaborated this argument the political landscape has altered considerably. The ANC has suffered declines in electoral support at a time when protest across many social spheres has been increasing. Yet, there is little scholarship that attempts to examine the relationship between these two phenomena. This article addresses this gap through the analysis of data collected in three surveys of South African voters. Our analysis reveals that while the ANC remains the party of preference of both voters who have not engaged in protest and those that have not, we find that opposition parties are, to a greater extent, characterised by voting protesters. We suggest that party loyalty to the ANC has become a much less binding constraint on voting protesters’ indirect and direct political actions.