South Africa: Sociological Perspectives
Abstract
SHORTER NOTICES Heribert Adam (ed.), South Africa: Socio- logical Perspectives. Oxford University Press, '97I, Xii + 340 PP., £350. There is virtually no discussion of the theoretical problems of analysis in the social science literature on South Africa. This lack of interest in theory is reflected in the largely descriptive and empiricist character of the published empirical work. Generally, the studies are restricted to accounts of changes in the political ideology of Apartheid and the policy of the Government and the responses of various groups to these changes. The ex- planation of these changes and responses tends to be ad hoc in the extreme. It does not, of course, follow from the fact that the studies are not guided by any developed theory that they are, therefore, not based upon implicit theoretical assumptions. In fact, they share certain basic general assumptions concerning the explanatory salience of racial categories in the analysis of South African society. More specifically, in the first place, the actors' racial conceptions are taken to be explanatory of the major social processes of the society-this is so whether the explanation is reduced to the racial prejudices of individual actors or whether it is cast in