Is South Africa Different? Sociological Comparisons and Theoretical Contributions from the Land of Apartheid
Author(s)
Seidman, Gay
Abstract
For some fifty years, South Africa has occupied a distinctive status: To social scientists, the country that produced apartheid appeared unique, a case that should be compared to others only in an attempt to explain its unusual trajectory–in contrast to the more ordinary social science assumption that most societies have at least a few common, or at least comparable features. To some extent, of course, this status was shaped by politics. Apartheid’s opponents sought to isolate South Africa, distinguishing apartheid from other forms of racial capitalism. But South Africa’s unique status also reflected a theoretical bias. More industrialized than any other part of Africa, yet more colonial than any other industrialized society, South Africa fit uneasily into ordinary social science categories; instead, it served as the case that demonstrated that racial divisions do not always disappear with industrialization. By the late twentieth century, of course, most analysts were willing to accept that racial inequalities had not disappeared in any society–industrialized or otherwise–yet South Africa’s outlier status generally remained unquestioned.
