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Party Allegiance among Europeans in Rural Rhodesia — a research note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Richard Hodder-Williams
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Bristol

Extract

The racial cleavage has understandably dominated most studies of Rhodesian politics. Cohn Leys claimed in the late 1950s that the European community maintained ‘a type of one-party system’ that sustained itself by uniting on race against all foes, rather than splitting along class or social lines.1 The centrality of race has been challenged recently by Giovanni Arrighi, who argued that the policies of consecutive Rhodesian Governments could be explained by orthodox Marxism,2 and by David Murray, whose study of the 1923–53 period revealed a classically pluralist model of competing economic groups.3

Type
Africana
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

Page 130 note 1 See Bowman, L. W., ‘Organisation, Power, and Decision-Making within the Rhodesian Front’, in Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies (Leicester), VII, 2, 07 1969, p. 154,Google Scholar and Leys, C. T., European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (London, 1959), especially pp. 36, 71, 93, 127, 133, 172, 292–3, and 306–12.Google Scholar

Page 130 note 2 Arrighi, G., ‘The Political Economy of Rhodesia’, in New Left Review (London), 39, 09/10 1966, pp. 3565,Google Scholar and his slightly expanded version, The Political Economy of Rhodesia (The Hague, 1967).

Page 130 note 3 Murray, D. J., The Governmental System in Southern Rhodesia (London, 1970);Google Scholar but his analysis ends in 1953, and he has little to say about the period discussed in this article.

Page 130 note 4 Gluckman, M., ‘The Tribal Area in South and Central Africa’, in Kuper, Leo and Smith, M. G. (eds.), Pluralism in Africa (Los Angeles, 1969), pp. 375 and 379.Google Scholar

Page 131 note 1 Most certainly less of them had deserted than claimed to have done so. See Hodder-Williams, R., ‘White Attitudes and the Unilateral Declaration of Independence— a case study’, in Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, VIII, 3, 11 1970, pp. 258–9.Google Scholar

Page 131 note 2 The labels ‘Government Party’ and ‘Opposition Party’ are taken from Leys, op. cit. pp. 532–4. They are valuable for clarifying the numerous names used by politicians in Rhodesia's history. One drawback is that the Rhodesian Front must be termed the Opposition Party; but it is in a direct line from the Liberal, Confederate, and Dominion Parties.

Page 132 note 1 I follow Peter Worsley's wide definition of culture as ‘everything acquired by human beings that is not physically inherited. From this point of view, sewers are as much “culture” as symphonies’; Introducing Sociology (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 24.

Page 133 note 1 McEwan, P. J. M., ‘The Assimilation of European Immigrants in Southern Rhodesia’; Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1962.Google Scholar

Page 134 note 1 Cf. Franck, T. M., Race and Nationalism in Rhodesia-Nyasaland (London, 1960), pp. 238–9.Google Scholar

Page 134 note 2 Cf. Frantz, C. and Rogers, C. A., ‘Length of Residence and Race Attitudes of Europeans in Southern Rhodesia’, in Race (London), III, 05 1962, pp. 4654.Google Scholar

Page 134 note 3 McEwan, op. cit.

Page 135 note 1 It should be noted that there are many ‘British’ South Africans who consciously emulate what they conceive to be the practices and values of middle-class Britain in an effort to differentiate themselves from the Afrikaans-dominated culture of South Africa.

Page 135 note 2 Rogers, C. A., ‘The Organisation of Political Attitudes in Southern Rhodesia’, in The Rhodes–Livingstone Journal (Livingstone), XXV, 1959, p. 9.Google Scholar

Page 135 note 3 The concept of a ‘colour-caste’ society, used by Lloyd Warner in his analysis of the Southern States of America, is examined by Banton, Michael, Race Relations (London, 1967), pp. 142–53.Google Scholar

Page 135 note 4 Leys, op. cit. p. 174.

Page 138 note 1 See Rogers, C. A. and Frantz, C., Racial Themes in Southern Rhodesia (New York, 1962), pp. 296–8.Google Scholar

Page 138 note 2 Banton, op. cit. p. 139.

Page 139 note 1 Cf. Hodder-Wihiams, R., ‘Rhodesia's Search for a Constitution–or, Whatever happened to Whaley?’, in African Affairs (London), LXIX, 07 1970, pp. 217–35.Google Scholar

Page 139 note 2 See, for example, The Cape Argus (Cape Town), 1 March 1971, and Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg), 8 March 1971.