Voting Decisions and Racialized Fluidity in South Africa’s Metropolitan Municipalities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6027168 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M Paret (0000-0003-1031-2270), Carin Runciman (0000-0002-5177-8889) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 122 |
| Issue | 487 |
| Pages | 269-298 |
| Publication date | 2023-06-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-9909 • E-ISSN: 1468-2621 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/afraf/adad010 |
| OpenAlex | W4366759494 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
Do racial identities determine voting behaviour in post-apartheid South Africa? To address this question, we draw from a representative sample of 3,905 registered voters in five metropolitan municipalities: Johannesburg, Tshwane, Durban, Cape Town, and Nelson Mandela Bay. Our findings are mixed. On the one hand, Black voters were significantly more likely to vote for the African National Congress, whereas Coloured, Indian, and especially white voters were more likely to vote for the Democratic Alliance. This contrast comes into particular focus when we examine how voters acted over the course of a three-election period. On the other hand, race was far from a guaranteed predictor, not the least because many chose to abstain from voting—a trend that extended, though unevenly, to all racial groups. Importantly, though, the electorate did not split between party loyalists and consistent abstainers. Instead, fluidity predominated: About half of the electorate changed positions between elections, either by switching between parties or between voting and abstaining. Our findings thus demonstrate what we call ‘racialized fluidity’: Many voters are changing their voting decision from one election to the next, but in the aggregate, racial identity remains correlated with voting decisions
Alliance · Democracy · Demographic economics · Economics · First-past-the-post voting · Geography · Group voting ticket · Metropolitan area · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Race (biology) · Sociology · Split-ticket voting · Voting · Voting behavior · White (mutation) · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law
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| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |