¹ Cousins, Ben, ‘Agrarian Reform and the “Two Economies”Google Scholar: Transforming South Africa’s Countryside’, in Ntsebeza, Lungisile and Hall, Ruth, eds, The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007), pp. 220–245Google Scholar, at p. 238.

² Numerous studies of South African public opinion have documented large, if not vast, interracial differences in political opinions, attitudes, values and behaviours. For a sampling of the literature, see: Gibson, James L. and Gouws, Amanda, Overcoming Intolerance in South Africa: Experiments in Democratic Persuasion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, on political tolerance; Gibson, James L., Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004)Google Scholar, on truth acceptance and reconciliation; Ferree, Karen E., ‘Explaining South Africa’s Racial Census’, Journal of Politics, 68 (2006), 803–815CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the various chapters reported in Piombo, Jessica and Nijzink, Lia, Electoral Politics in South Africa: Assessing the First Democratic Decade (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2006)Google Scholar, on party support and voting behaviour; Seekings and Nattrass, Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa, on economic matters, including inequality; Roberts, Benjamin, ‘The Happy Transition? Attitudes to Poverty and Inequality After a Decade of Democracy’, in Udesh Pillay, Benjamin Roberts and Stephen Rule, eds, South African Social Attitudes: Changing Times, Diverse Voices (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2006), pp. 101–130Google Scholar, on poverty and inequality; Klandermans, Bert, Roefs, Marlene and Olivier, Johan L., The State of the People: Citizens, Civil Society and Governance in South Africa, 1994–2000 (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 2001)Google Scholar, on political participation and civil society involvement; and see also the various chapters reported in Pillay, Roberts and Rule, eds, South African Social Attitudes. One might also add to this list Mbeki, Thabo, ‘Statement at the Opening of Debate on “Reconciliation and Nation Building” ’ (National Assembly of South Africa, Cape Town, 29 May)Google Scholar, 〈http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mbeki/1998/sp980529.html〉, accessed 30 January 2008. Mbeki has often complained about the racially defined ‘Two Nations’ in South Africa. For a most useful comparative analysis of the attitudes of South Africans with those of citizens of other African countries, see Bratton, Michael, Mattes, Robert and Gyimah-Boadi, E., Public, Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

³ Land restitution and redistribution are quite distinct issues. Only for purposes of avoiding the tedious reference to restitution/redistribution do I refer to policy in terms of redistribution alone.

⁴ As Hall, Ruth and Ntsebeza, Lungisile, ‘Introduction’, in Lungisile Ntsebeza and Ruth Hall, eds, The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007), pp. 1–24Google Scholar, p. 7, assert: ‘while there may be a demand for land as an economic asset, ownership of land in South Africa also represents a source of identity and a symbol of citizenship. Land reform is therefore also a political imperative and continuing inequality in land ownership is a highly emotive and controversial issue.’ See also Walker, Cherryl, ‘Redistributive Land Reform: For What and For Whom?’ in Ntsebeza and Hall, eds, The Land Question in South Africa, pp. 132–151Google Scholar, at p. 132.

⁵ Hall, and Ntsebeza, , ‘Introduction’, p. 13Google Scholar.

⁶ Race is a complicated construct in South Africa; see Appendix A for a discussion.

⁷ As I write this sentence (January 2008), South Africa faces an uncertain political future. Jacob Zuma has been selected as the leader of the ANC, and is expected to become president of the country in 2009. However, Zuma has also been indicted for corruption in the notorious arms deal scandal that has dogged him (and the country) for years. Whether Zuma ascends to the presidency is important for land politics because the issue is likely to be one that Zuma, as a consummate populist, will exploit, and exploit effectively.

⁸ See Turner, Stephen and Ibsen, Hilde, Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa: A Status Report (Cape Town: Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, School of Government, University of the Western Cape, and Centre for International Environment and Development Studies, Agricultural University of Norway, 2000)Google Scholar for a valuable review of land reform in South Africa; see also Hall and Ntsebeza, ‘Introduction’; Hall, Ruth, ‘Transforming Rural South Africa? Taking Stock of Land Reform’, in Ntsebeza and Hall, eds, The Land Question in South Africa, pp. 87–106Google Scholar; Walker, Cherryl, ‘The Limits of Land Reform: Rethinking “the Land Question” ’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 31 (2005), 805–824CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gibson, James L., Overcoming Historical Land Injustices: Land Reconciliation in Contemporary South Africa, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

⁹ I begin this history of land dispossessions in South Africa with the Natives Land Act No. 27 of 1913, not because no land was expropriated before 1913, but rather because the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 limited its jurisdiction to racially motivated land dispossessions taking place after the passage of the Natives Land Act of 1913. Those who lost their land prior to this act are generally (but not always, via some creative litigation strategies) ineligible for restitution.

¹⁰ At least a few whites were also affected by this policy of ethnic cleansing. For instance, the Opperman family has filed a claim before the Land Claims Court alleging that their family was compelled to sell their farm land north of Pretoria as part of the government’s scheme to create the Lebowa homeland. The family claims that they were forced to accept compensation at less than the fair value of the land. The family further contends that it was targeted by the government due to its efforts to promote non-racialism in sports in South Africa. See Hofstätter, Stephan, ‘Whites Stake Land Claim’, This Day (5 August 2004), p. 1Google Scholar.

¹¹ de Villiers, Bertus, Land Reform: Issues and Challenges: A Comparative Overview of Experiences in Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and Australia (Johannesburg: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2003), p. 46Google Scholar.

¹² Surplus People Project, Forced Removals in South Africa (Cape Town: Surplus People Project, 1983)Google ScholarPubMed, see Turner, and Ibsen, , Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa, for detailsGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Villa-Vicencio, Charles and Ngesi, S’fiso, ‘South Africa: Beyond the “Miracle” ’, in Erik Doxtader and Charles Villa-Vicencio, eds, Through Fire with Water: The Roots of Division and the Potential for Reconciliation in Africa (Claremont, South Africa: David Philip, 2003), pp. 266–302Google Scholar, p. 283. See also Platzky, Laurine and Walker, Cherryl, The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ For a superb historical and legal analysis, see Miller, Carey D. L., with Pope, Anne, Land Title in South Africa (Kenwyn, South Africa: Juta & Co., 2000)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Redistribution relies upon a system of grants to individual citizens to allow them to purchase land on the open market, based on the principle of the ‘willing buyer/willing seller’. This policy is currently being reconsidered and revised (see Benjamin, Chantelle, ‘Commission sets deadline for land claims: land will be expropriated if negotiations dragged on more than three years’, Business Day, 23 July 2007, 〈http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1887779〉, accessed 24 July 2007Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Security of tenure is based on two pieces of legislation, the Land Reform (Labour tenants) Act of 1996 and the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) of 1997. The primary focus of this legislation is on the security of tenure of labour tenants and farm workers. Walker, Cherryl, Agrarian Change, Gender and Land Reform: A South African Case Study, Social Policy and Development Programme Paper Number 10 (Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2002)Google Scholar, p. 43, refers to security of tenure as ‘the most politically difficult aspect of land reform to manage, as it brought the DLA [Department of Land Affairs] into conflict with two very different but equally hostile and defensive constituencies – commercial farmers, with respect to the tenure security of farm works and labour tenants living on the land they own, and traditional leaders and tribal authorities, with respect to tenure security for the residents of communal areas’.

¹⁷ Hall, , ‘Transforming Rural South Africa?’, p. 93Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Hall, , ‘Transforming Rural South Africa?’, p. 93Google Scholar.

¹⁹ The number of claims changes continuously as group claims get split into sub-group and individual claims. Hall, , ‘Transforming Rural South Africa?’, p. 93Google Scholar, estimates that there are now about 80,000 claims.

²⁰ The Landless People’s Movement sought to mobilize ordinary South Africans on the land issue. However, by late 2006, the movement seemed to be in complete disarray (see Ntsebeza, Lungisile, ‘Land Redistribution in South Africa: The Property Clause Revisited’, in Ntsebeza and Hall, eds, The Land Question in South Africa, pp. 107–131, p. 128)Google Scholar.

²¹ See fn. 7.

²² Cousins, , ‘Agrarian Reform and the “Two Economies” ’, p. 238Google Scholar.

²³ Only a handful of earlier studies has focused on either mass or elite opinions on land issues. See, for examples, Gran, Thorvald, ‘Land Politics and Trust Relations in Government: Findings from Western South Africa’, in Steinar Askvik and Nelleke Bak, eds, Trust in Public Institutions in South Africa (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 103–119Google Scholar; du Toit, Pierre, ‘The Rule of Law, Public Opinion and the Politics of Land Restitution in South Africa’, (paper delivered at the conference on Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Restitution in South Africa, Houw Hoek, South Africa, 2006)Google Scholar; and Aliber, Michael, Reitzes, Maxine and Roefs, Marlene, ‘Assessing the Alignment of South Africa’s Land Reform Policy to People’s Aspirations and Expectations: A Policy-Oriented Report Based on a Survey in Three Provinces’ (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2006)Google Scholar. Roberts, , ‘The Happy Transition?’, p. 120Google Scholar, reports the results from a single land question within the context of attitudes towards the responsibilities of government. He finds vast racial differences on whether government should ‘redistribute land to black South Africans’. Generally, though, no prior study examines land attitudes as comprehensively as this study does.

²⁴ In 2004, interviews were completed with 4,108 South Africans, including 1,549 Africans, 1,362 whites, 738 Coloured respondents, and 459 South Africans of Asian origin. Two different sampling strategies were used in this survey, one for the large African majority, the other for the three small racial minorities. Because the methodological issues involved are complicated, a full discussion of them appears in Appendix B. In summary, conclusions from the black sub-sample warrant a great deal of confidence since the sample was selected using probability methods obtaining a very high response rate; the Coloured and Asian sub-samples blend probability and quota methods, have a moderate response rate, and therefore deserve a moderate degree of confidence; and the white sub-sample warrants relatively low confidence owing to the sampling methods, low response rates, and the need to correct non-representativeness via fairly substantial post-stratification.

²⁵ For many, land is a central element of transitional justice politics and reconciliation in South Africa. For instance, Roux, Theunis, ‘Land Restitution and Reconciliation in South Africa’ (paper presented at the Conference on Transitional Justice in South Africa, Cambridge University, 2006)Google Scholar, treats land restitution as a form of reconciliation. On reconciliation more generally, see Gibson, , Overcoming ApartheidGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ According to Sears, David O., ‘Symbolic Politics: A Socio-Psychological Theory’, in Shanto Iyengar and William J. McGuire, eds, Explorations in Political Psychology (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 113–149Google Scholar, p. 118, ‘ “self interest” [is] defined conceptually in terms of the impact of policy proposals or candidacies on the individual’s personal life.’

²⁷ Wolpert, Robin W. and Gimpel, James G., ‘Self-Interest, Symbolic Politics, and Public Attitudes toward Gun Control’, Political Behavior, 20 (1998), 241–262, pp. 241–242CrossRefGoogle Scholar, citations given by Wolpert and Gimpel available from the author upon request; see also Funk, Carolyn L, ‘The Dual Influence of Self-Interest and Societal Interest in Public Opinion’, Political Research Quarterly, 53 (2000), 37–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Sears, , ‘Symbolic Politics’, p. 120Google Scholar.

²⁹ Sears, , ‘Symbolic Politics’, p. 113Google Scholar.

³⁰ Sears, , ‘Symbolic Politics’, p. 120Google Scholar.

³¹ Sides, John and Citrin, Jack, ‘European Opinion About Immigration: The Role of Identities, Interests and Information’, British Journal of Political Science, 37 (2007), 477–504, p. 479CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² Sears, , ‘Symbolic Politics’Google Scholar.

³³ Sides, and Citrin, , ‘European Opinion About Immigration’, p. 477Google Scholar.

³⁴ Sides, and Citrin, , ‘European Opinion About Immigration’, p. 501Google Scholar.

³⁵ Wolpert, and Gimpel, , ‘Self-Interest, Symbolic Politics, and Public Attitudes toward Gun Control’Google Scholar; Bobo, Lawrence D. and Tuan, Mia, Prejudice in Politics: Group Position, Public Opinion, and the Wisconsin Treaty Rights Dispute (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; see also Schneider, Saundra K. and Jacoby, William G., ‘Reconsidering the Linkage between Public Assistance and Public Opinion in the American Welfare State’, British Journal of Political Science, 37 (2007), 555–566CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Mutz, Diana C. and Mondak, Jeffery J., ‘Dimensions of Sociotropic Behavior: Group-Based Judgments of Fairness and Well-Being’, American Journal of Political Science, 41 (1997), 284–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 288.

³⁷ Mutz, and Mondak, , ‘Dimensions of Sociotropic Behavior’, p. 303Google Scholar, emphasis added. I recognize that, in the original formulation of these concepts by Kinder, Donald R. and Kiewiet, D. Roderick, ‘Economic Discontent and Political Behavior: The Role of Personal Grievances and Collective Economic Judgments in Congressional Voting’, American Journal of Political Science, 23 (1979), 495–527CrossRefGoogle Scholar, sociotropic interests were conceptualized largely in self-interest terms under something akin to a ‘linked fate’ (e.g., Dawson, Michael C., Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar) explanation: to the extent that one’s group profits, one also benefits. However, Mutz and Mondak describe this sense of sociotropic justice not so much in direct self-interest or group-interest terms but rather as an interest in seeing that all groups in society (including one’s own) are treated fairly (which can include the desire for acknowledgement that one’s group was treated unfairly in the past). In this sense, the theory is related to Tyler’s relational theory of procedural justice (see Tyler, Tom R. and Lind, E. Allan, ‘A Relational Model of Authority in Groups’, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25 (1992), 115–191)CrossRefGoogle Scholar in which citizens learn about their value in society through the treatment their group is perceived to receive. See also Bobo and Tuan, Prejudice in Politics, who argue that self-interest must be understood within the context of social structures (in the South African context, colonialism and apartheid) determining intergroup relations, and therefore that self-interest and group interests may coincide. (For further discussion of this issue, see fn. 45 below.)

³⁸ Many scholars acknowledge a tension between these two forms of thinking about politics. For instance, Ferree, ‘Explaining South Africa’s Racial Census’, concludes that most South Africans rely on instrumental rather than symbolic factors when choosing which political parties to support with their votes. Voting, however, may be a relatively easy context within which instrumental behaviour is possible. For a useful analysis of symbolic and instrumental influences on immigration policy preferences, see Sides, and Citrin, , ‘European Opinion About Immigration’Google Scholar. On instrumentalism and democratic values more generally, see Bratton, Michael and Mattes, Robert, ‘Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or Instrumental?’, British Journal of Political Science, 31 (2001), 447–474CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁹ Bertus de Villiers provided most useful help on the formulation of the land policy questions.

⁴⁰ That most blacks do not support tax increases is itself worrisome for theories of self-interest.

⁴¹ For ease of interpretation, I have re-scored the index to range between 0 to 1. This measure is highly reliable: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.79. When factor analysed among all South Africans, only one significant factor emerges, with factor loadings ranging from 0.72 (returning land taken by settlers) to 0.39 (increasing taxes on everyone).

⁴² See Gibson, , Overcoming Apartheid, chap. 2Google Scholar.

⁴³ According to an ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis, 38 per cent of the variance in social class is associated with race, with whites being dramatically better off than blacks, while South Africans of Asian origin and Coloured people are somewhat better off than blacks. Seekings, Jeremy and Nattrass, Nicoli, ‘Class, Distribution and Redistribution in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, Transformation, 50 (2002), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Seekings and Nattrass, Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa, assert that the class cleavage is quickly overtaking the race cleavage in contemporary South African politics.

⁴⁴ See Appendix C for the measurement of these constructs. Among African respondents, 4.5 per cent were squatters, 54.8 per cent asserted a land grievance, 20.3 per cent said they had filed a land claim, the average number of injuries experienced under apartheid was 1.6 (of a maximum of 8), 54.6 per cent thought at least some chance existed that others might file a claim to their land, and (according to one component of the social class factor score), 59.7 per cent were rated by the interviewers as manual or unskilled labourers, or unemployed.

⁴⁵ In research such as this, debates always emerge about whether self interest is adequately captured by the measures employed. If one takes a quite broad view of self-interest, then interests are always implicated and the theory is tautological. For example, I could be said to profit from the murder of my wife because, by society punishing the murder, it reaffirms and reinforces the norm that murder is improper, thereby giving me solace and perhaps even reducing the chances of murder – even my murder – happening in the future, which is of course to my benefit. In the instance of land interests in South Africa, given that there is a formal claims process by which South Africans can assert their grievances – and given that the survey measures treat grieving and claiming in extremely broad terms and without requiring verification – the indicators of interests are unusually valid. Note, as well, that these conditions are, according to Citrin and Green, among those most likely to generate an influence of self-interest: ‘the critical elements in this regard [regarding the conditions under which self interests are influential] refer to the nature of the stakes and the ability of citizens to perceive the personal costs and benefits involved’ ( Citrin, Jack and Green, Donald Philip, ‘The Self-Interest Motive in American Public Opinion’, Research in Micropolitics, 3 (1990), 1–27Google Scholar, p. 22). Land restitution and retribution in South Africa clearly satisfy these criteria.

⁴⁶ As Ntsebeza, , ‘Land Redistribution in South Africa’, p. 124Google Scholar, notes: ‘It is hard to imagine how any process of land redistribution that downplays this history can hope to gain legitimacy, in particular in the eyes of those who were robbed of their land.’ And: ‘The starting point in [the debate over property rights and the willing buyer, willing seller approach to land reform] should be whether a comprehensive land redistribution programme in South Africa can take place if it ignores colonial conquest, land dispossession and the fact that commercial farming triumphed as a result of the naked exploitation of African labour.’

⁴⁷ One might expect the first item in this table (‘Making up for past injustices’) to be one of the best predictors of land policy preferences, and in fact the bivariate correlations are of moderate magnitude. Because responses to this item reflect a general viewpoint, the variable is strongly intercorrelated with the other independent variables, and, in the analysis for some groups, multicollinearity reduces the multivariate coefficient to insignificance.

⁴⁸ I do not contend that contemporary and historical criteria are locked in zero-sum tension in the minds of most South Africans. Indeed, there is a reasonably strong connection between preferring that policy be based on criteria grounded in the past and that it be based on contemporary factors (r > 0.5).

⁴⁹ E.g. Hall, and Ntsebeza, , The Land Question in South AfricaGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ When this set of items is subjected to Common Factor Analysis, a strongly unidimensional factor structure emerges. The eigenvalue of the first extracted factor is 3.07, accounting for 51.1 per cent of the common variance; the eigenvalue for the second factor is a mere 0.75 (explaining only 12.5 per cent of the residual common variance). All items load roughly equally on the first factor, with the strongest loading associated with the statement on land making one a complete person (0.68) and the weakest with the assertion about ancestors (0.58). Cronbach’s alpha is 0.81. Thus, the statistical analysis reveals that this set of items is unidimensional and that the index created from these items is highly valid and reliable.

⁵¹ Ntsebeza, , ‘Land Redistribution in South Africa’Google Scholar; Hall, and Ntsebeza, , The Land Question in South Africa, p. 11Google Scholar.

⁵² Obviously, many observers disagree with this viewpoint. For the purposes of this research, it is not necessary to judge the efficacy of this policy position.

⁵³ Based on their research in Benin, , Duch, Raymond M. and Palmer, Harvey D., ‘It’s Not Whether You Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game: Self-Interest, Social Justice, and Mass Attitudes toward Market Transition’, American Political Science Review, 98 (2004), 437–452Google Scholar, suggest that support for private property rights is a universal, ‘instinctual’ value. Such seems not to be the case in South Africa.

⁵⁴ The property rights items have marginal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.60; mean inter-item correlation = 0.23), in part owing to degenerate variance on the first item in the table (farmer compensation). This item is also the most weakly correlated with the other statements, and it has the smallest loading on the first unrotated factor extracted in a Common Factor Analysis. That analysis reveals two significant dimensions, although the eigenvalue of the second factor, at 1.04, just barely exceeds 1.00. I have kept the farmer compensation item in the index of support for private property rights, even though it is virtually a constant and therefore has little impact on the analysis.

⁵⁵ For a similar analysis of the relative value Americans ascribe to security and liberty, see Davis, Darren W., Negative Liberty: Public Opinion and the Terrorist Attacks on America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006)Google Scholar; and Davis, Darren W. and Silver, Brian D., ‘Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America’, American Journal of Political Science, 48 (2004), 28–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁶ A considerable body of research examines mass support for the rule of law. In the South African case, see Gibson, , Overcoming ApartheidGoogle Scholar; Gibson, James L., ‘The Evolving Legitimacy of the South African Constitutional Court’, in Antje du Bois-Pedain and François du Bois, eds, Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; and Gibson, James L. and Gouws, Amanda, ‘Support for the Rule of Law in the Emerging South African Democracy’, International Social Science Journal, 152 (1997), 173–191Google Scholar; on Russia, see Gibson, James L., ‘Russian Attitudes towards the Rule of Law: An Analysis of Survey Data’, in Denis J. Galligan and Marina Kurkchiyan, eds, Law and Informal Practices: The Post-Communist Experience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 77–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Europe, see Gibson, James L. and Caldeira, Gregory A., ‘The Legal Cultures of Europe’, Law and Society Review, 30 (1996), 55–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and on the United States, see Gibson, James L., ‘Changes in American Veneration for the Rule of Law’, DePaul Law Review, 56 (2007), 593–614Google Scholar. Tamanaha, Brian Z., On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provides a most useful theoretical analysis of the concept of rule of law.

⁵⁷ The responses to this item are particularly revealing since the apartheid government in South Africa often ruled via states of emergency, albeit states that were legally declared via legitimate apartheid institutions and procedures.

⁵⁸ The four-item set of rule of law items is confirmed by Common Factor Analysis to be strongly unidimensional. However, the set is not very reliable: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.47 (with a mean inter-item correlation of only 0.18). This most likely reflects the fact that the pool of items represents different aspects of the rule of law, focusing in part on constraints imposed by law on the individual and in part on the state itself. Additional measures tapping the concept’s various subcomponents would probably yield a more reliable index.

⁵⁹ A vast literature on the attribution of blame exists. For research on blame in the South African case, see Gibson, James L. and Gouws, Amanda, ‘Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Attributions of Blame and the Struggle over Apartheid’, American Political Science Review, 93 (1999), 501–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ This viewpoint is well illustrated by the comments of a white female in one of our focus groups. She exclaimed (emphasis added): ‘On the one hand, I feel these dispossessions happened long ago and I mean they cannot now blame the owners of the houses for what the government did at that time. I mean it is just like this apartheid, when it came into effect, they cannot blame us now because it was implemented. We had nothing to do with it.’

⁶¹ When factor analysed, these blame attributions produce a two-dimensional structure. The first factor allocates blame to whites and the apartheid past, while the second factor is defined primarily in terms of the perceived shortcomings of blacks. These two factors are, however, strongly correlated (r = 0.62), indicating that they are simply slightly different emphases in an overall ideology of blame. South Africans are strongly divided by race in terms of blaming whites and the apartheid past (η = 0.58), with vast differences between whites and blacks, but racial differences on whether blacks are themselves to blame are considerably more muted (η = 0.24).

⁶² For quite valuable assistance on framing the questions about knowledge of South African history, I am indebted to Chris Willemse, and to Christopher Saunders (University of Cape Town, History Department). For an earlier report on South Africans’ knowledge of their history, see Macfarlane, David, ‘True lies or false truths?’, Mail & Guardian, 6–12 June 2003, p. 3Google ScholarPubMed.

⁶³ These questions were accompanied by showcards with three response statements (one correct answer and two foils) for each of the questions. Appendix C reports the questions in full.

⁶⁴ Interestingly, little relationship exists within any group between knowledge of South Africa’s land history and willingness to blame either blacks or whites for contemporary land inequality. Nor do I find any interesting interactive effects of land knowledge.

⁶⁵ These results are available from the author.

⁶⁶ For a most useful review of racial categorization under apartheid, see Posel, Deborah, ‘What’s In a Name? Racial Categorisations under Apartheid and Their Afterlife’, Transformation, 47 (2001), 50–74, <http://www.transformation.und.ac.za/issue%2047/47%20posel1.pdf>, accessed 6 March 2003Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ James, Wilmot and Lever, Jeffrey, ‘South Africa – The Second Republic: Race, Inequality and Democracy in South Africa’, in a collection of papers by the Human Relations Initiative entitled Three Nations at the Crossroad (Atlanta, Ga.: The Southern Education Foundation, 2000), pp. 42–59Google Scholar, p. 44 (see www.sefatl.org).

⁶⁸ The editor of a special issue of Daedalus focused on South Africa had this to say about the use of racial terms in the articles in the journal: ‘Many of the authors in this issue observe the South African convention of dividing the country’s population into four racial categories: white (of European descent), colored (of mixed ancestry), Indian (forebears from the Indian subcontinent), and African. The official nomenclature for “Africans” has itself varied over the years, changing from “native” to “Bantu” in the middle of the apartheid era, and then changing again to “black” or, today, “African/black.” All of these terms appear in the essays that follow.’ See Graubard, Stephen R., ‘Preface to the Issue “Why South Africa Matters” ’, Daedalus, 130 (2001), v-viii, at p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ James, and Lever, , ‘South Africa – The Second Republic’, p. 44Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Posel, , ‘What’s In a Name?’, pp. 56–57Google Scholar.

⁷¹ Haron, Muhammed, ‘Conflict of Identities: The Case of South Africa’s Cape Malays’ (paper presented at the Malay World Conference, Kuala Lumpur, 2000)Google Scholar; Davenport, Rodney and Saunders, Christopher, South Africa: A Modern History, 5th edn (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), pp. 33–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 122.

⁷² Davenport, and Saunders, , South Africa: A Modern History, p. 121Google Scholar.

⁷³ See, for example, Gibson, and Gouws, , ‘Support for the Rule of Law in the Emerging South African Democracy’; also Gibson, Overcoming ApartheidGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁴ I have excluded from this number the following: 130 households in which a male was designated to be interviewed, but in which no males resided; 63 households in which a female was designated to be interviewed, but in which no females resided; and 3 households in which we expected to find black residents, but in fact found residents of another race.

⁷⁵ It is easy to see why Markinor uses probability methods for the black sub-sample, since probability samples have a wide range of known useful attributes. In addition, however, Markinor believes that probability methods are called for by the relatively high mobility of the black population (thereby rendering current population statistics less reliable), and by the frequency with which multiple households are found to occupy a single location or house. Justifying the use of quota samples is a more demanding task. According to Markinor, the driving factor is high non-completion rates among whites, coloured people, and Indians. Non-completion is due to lack of access to individual homes as well as outright refusals. Markinor believes that substitution rates are so high with probability samples that the theoretical basis of such samples is entirely undone.

⁷⁶ An overall response rate cannot be calculated for the survey since calculating such figures is impossible for the quota samples. As I have noted, the response rates for the four probability samples are: blacks, 87.1 per cent, whites, 32.1 per cent, coloured people, 65.1 per cent, and South Africans of Asian origin, 63.5 per cent. Thus, for the purely probability portions of this survey, the overall response rate is in the order of 76.9 per cent. This figure, of course, reflects the facts that (a) the response rate among black South Africans was very high, and (b) black South Africans constitute a very large proportion of the total South African population.

⁷⁷ For the purposes of describing the characteristics of the sample, no weighting is employed.

⁷⁸ Of course, we never allow the interviewers to engage in simultaneous translation. The questionnaires are themselves multilingual: each question in the questionnaire is printed in both English and the language of choice of the respondent.