Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II South African Intolerance as It Is
- 3 The Nature of Political Intolerance in South Africa
- 4 Social Identities, Threat Perceptions, and Political Intolerance
- 5 Making Tolerance Judgments: The Effect of Context, Local and National
- Part III South African Tolerance as It Might Be
- Appendix A Research Design and Methodology
- References
- Index
- Books in the series
4 - Social Identities, Threat Perceptions, and Political Intolerance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II South African Intolerance as It Is
- 3 The Nature of Political Intolerance in South Africa
- 4 Social Identities, Threat Perceptions, and Political Intolerance
- 5 Making Tolerance Judgments: The Effect of Context, Local and National
- Part III South African Tolerance as It Might Be
- Appendix A Research Design and Methodology
- References
- Index
- Books in the series
Summary
As we have argued, South Africa faces a host of impediments to the successful consolidation of its efforts at democratizing its political system. Grinding poverty, extreme inequality, and the “lost generation” of young warriors against apartheid are just some of the most pressing difficulties facing the new regime. Optimism about the future of democracy in South Africa is in short supply (e.g., Giliomee 1995).
Among the impediments to democratic consolidation is the high degree of subcultural pluralism within South Africa. The country is divided, and deeply so, along a variety of racial, ethnic, and linguistic lines. Race is certainly central to South African politics, but intraracial (or ethnic) divisions are terribly significant as well. “Subcultural pluralism” has often been found to be a major impediment to successful democratization (e.g., Dahl 1989; Bollen and Jackman 1985; Horowitz 1985; Weingast 1997), and South Africa has an extreme case of such pluralism (e.g., Smooha and Hanf 1992; Horowitz 1991).
One important consequence of subcultural pluralism is political intolerance. In deeply divided polities, people typically develop strong ingroup positive identities, often leading to strong outgroup animosities. This psychological division of the world into friends and foes can undermine tolerance. Thus, Social Identity Theory (SIT, see Tajfel 1978; Tajfel and Turner 1979) is a micro-level complement to macro-level theories about the role of cultural pluralism in the development of democratic institutions and processes. Cultural pluralism contributes to strong group identities, leading to an unwillingness to put up with one's political foes, which impedes the free and open political competition so essential to democratic governance.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Overcoming Intolerance in South AfricaExperiments in Democratic Persuasion, pp. 72 - 94Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002