South Africa’s emerging black middle class : a harbinger of political change?

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Mattes, Robert (2015) South Africa’s emerging black middle class : a harbinger of political change? Journal of International Development, 27 (5). pp. 665-692. ISSN 0954-1748 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jid.3100)

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Abstract

While South Africa has seen a significant increase in the post-apartheid period in the size of the Black middle class, the attitudinal consequences of indicators of the middle class, as of 2011, are inconsistent and modest in size. While they are no more likely to hold democratic values than other Black South Africans, they are more likely to want the government to secure 'higher-order' rather than basic survival needs. They are less likely to identify with the governing African National Congress and to turn out to vote. They are also less likely to ‘voice’ their concerns by contacting officials or joining in conventional or unconventional forms of collective action. Yet while intra-racial class differences amongst Black people remain muted, intra-class racial differences amongst South Africa's middle class are still substantial.

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