IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-03022282.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Extreme Inequality and the Structure of Political Cleavages in South Africa, 1994-2019

Author

Listed:
  • Amory Gethin

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, WIL - World Inequality Lab)

Abstract

This paper draws on political attitudes surveys conducted at the time of general elections to study the interplay of social inequalities, changing social structures, and racial cleavages in South Africa since 1994. I analyze the link between voting behaviors and the main socioeconomic characteristics of voters, in particular income, education level, wealth, race, and their interactions. I document extreme socioeconomic political divides, which are strongly, though not entirely explained by South Africa's exceptional racial inequalities. The gradual decline of the dominant African National Congress since 1994 has been driven by the shift of the new Black middle class towards opposition parties. Growing abstention among the youth and the lower-educated has further eroded support for the ANC. I also put South Africa's cleavage politics in comparative perspective, focusing on how the transformation of dominant-party systems in new democracies plays a role in crystallizing new sociopolitical identities.

Suggested Citation

  • Amory Gethin, 2020. "Extreme Inequality and the Structure of Political Cleavages in South Africa, 1994-2019," Working Papers halshs-03022282, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03022282
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03022282
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03022282/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Piketty, 2018. "Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right: Rising Inequality & the Changing Structure of Political Conflict," Working Papers hal-02878211, HAL.
    2. Aroop Chatterjee & Léo Czajka & Amory Gethin, 2020. "Estimating the Distribution of Household Wealth in South Africa," Working Papers hal-02876974, HAL.
    3. Feinstein,Charles H., 2005. "An Economic History of South Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521616416, September.
    4. Abhijit Banerjee & Amory Gethin & Thomas Piketty, 2019. "Growing Cleavages in India? Evidence from the Changing Structure of Party Electorates, 1962-2014," PSE Working Papers hal-02877001, HAL.
    5. Brownback, Andy & Novotny, Aaron, 2018. "Social desirability bias and polling errors in the 2016 presidential election," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 38-56.
    6. Feinstein,Charles H., 2005. "An Economic History of South Africa," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521850919, September.
    7. Robert Mattes, 2015. "South Africa's Emerging Black Middle Class: A Harbinger of Political Change?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(5), pages 665-692, July.
    8. Amory Gethin & Thanasak Jenmana, 2021. "Democratization and the Construction of Class Cleavages in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, 1992-2019," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-03215872, HAL.
    9. Servaas van der Berg & Megan Louw, 2003. "Changing Patterns of South African income distribution: Towards time series estimates of distribution and poverty," Working Papers 02/2003, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    10. Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard & Arden Finn & Jonathan Argent, 2010. "Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 101, OECD Publishing.
    11. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B Atkinson, 2010. "Colonial Rule, Apartheid and Natural Resources: Top Incomes in South Africa 1903-2005," OxCarre Working Papers 046, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jules Baleyte & Amory Gethin & Yajna Govind & Thomas Piketty, 2020. "Social Inequalities and the Politicization of Ethnic Cleavages in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, 1999-2019," Working Papers halshs-03022210, HAL.
    2. Amory Gethin & Thanasak Jenmana, 2021. "Democratization and the Construction of Class Cleavages in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, 1992-2019," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-03215872, HAL.
    3. Carmen Durrer de La Sota & Amory Gethin, 2021. "Inequality, Identity, and the Structure of Political Cleavages in South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, 1996-2016," PSE Working Papers halshs-03165716, HAL.
    4. Amory Gethin, & Sultan Mehmood & Thomas Piketty, 2020. "Social Inequality and the Dynamics of Political and Ethnolinguistic Divides in Pakistan, 1970-2018," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-03022253, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2015. "The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    2. Atkinson, Tony & Alvaredo, Facundo, 2016. "Top Incomes in South Africa Over a Century," INET Oxford Working Papers 2016-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    3. Facundo Alvaredo & A. B. Atkinson, 2022. "Top incomes in South Africa in the twentieth century," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 16(3), pages 477-546, September.
    4. Ihsaan Bassier & Ingrid Woolard, 2021. "Exclusive Growth? Rapidly Increasing Top Incomes Amid Low National Growth in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(2), pages 246-273, June.
    5. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2015. "World Human Development: 1870–2007," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 220-247, June.
    6. Amory Gethin, & Sultan Mehmood & Thomas Piketty, 2020. "Social Inequality and the Dynamics of Political and Ethnolinguistic Divides in Pakistan, 1970-2018," Working Papers halshs-03022253, HAL.
    7. Atkinson, Anthony B & Alvaredo, Facundo, 2010. "Colonial Rule, Apartheid and Natural Resources: Top Incomes in South Africa, 1903-2007," CEPR Discussion Papers 8155, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2013. "Human development in Africa: A long-run perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-204.
    9. repec:cte:whrepe:wp13-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2012. "Output Per Head In Pre-Independence Africa: Quantitative Conjectures," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 1-36, December.
    11. Kerr, Andrew & Wittenberg, Martin, 2021. "Union wage premia and wage inequality in South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 255-271.
    12. repec:cte:whrepe:wp11-09 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Clara Martinez-Toledano & Alice Sodano, 2021. "Changing Party Systems, Socio-Economic Cleavages, and Nationalism in Northern Europe, 1956-2017," Working Papers halshs-03135013, HAL.
    14. Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 2008. "Once Upon a Time in the Americas: Land and Immigration Policies in the New World," NBER Chapters, in: Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth: Geography, Institutions, and the Knowledge Economy, pages 13-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Lusine Lusinyan & John Thornton, 2007. "The Revenue‐Expenditure Nexus: Historical Evidence For South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(3), pages 496-507, September.
    16. Martine Mariotti, 2012. "Labour markets during apartheid in South Africa," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 65(3), pages 1100-1122, August.
    17. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen, 2009. "Slavery and Imperialism Did Not Enrich Europe," MPRA Paper 20696, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Potgieter, Petrus H., 2010. "Water and energy in South Africa – managing scarcity," MPRA Paper 23360, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Jan David Bakker & Christopher Parsons & Ferdinand Rauch, 2020. "Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(2), pages 509-532.
    20. Carlos Gradín, 2013. "Race, Poverty and Deprivation in South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(2), pages 187-238, March.
    21. Carlos Gradín, 2019. "Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 553-576, May.
    22. Abel Gwaindepi, 2022. "Fiscal capacity in ‘‘responsible government’’ colonies: the Cape Colony in comparative perspective, c. 1865–1910 [The spread of empire: Clio and the measurement of colonial borrowing costs]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 26(3), pages 340-369.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03022282. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.