Social mobilization and political participation: The Gold Coast and South Africa: 1900-1950

This dissertation explores the relationships between socio-economic change, social mobilization and political participation in two countries, the Gold Coast and South Africa. We first look at the indigenous political systems in these two countries before the advent of European rule/colonialism. Then we examine the nature and extent of socio-economic change which occurred in both cases after the advent of the Europeans. Next, we operationalize and attempt to measure the extent of social mobilization and the levels of political participation. Finally, we identify and discuss changes in levels of political participation in terms of changes in levels of social mobilization.;South Africa is our principal focus; the Gold Coast is our basis of comparison. Given the extent of change which occurred in South Africa, its African population should have been among the most politically active on the African continent. Yet such participation as existed did not translate into large-scale membership in the African National Congress (ANC) from its formation in 1912 until the early 1950s. Therefore, we are primarily interested in the following question: Why did so few Africans join the ANC in the 37-year period from 1912 to 1949?;Chapter I is a theoretical critique of the conceptual framework of social mobilization. In Chapters II and III, we explore the case of the Gold Coast to assess the extent to which this framework helps explain changes in levels of political participation. Our findings from the Gold Coast are then used to explore the much more complicated case of South Africa.;Chapters IV through VII concern the nature and extent of socio-economic change, the development of a mobilized African population, and the political behavior of Africans in South Africa from the 1870s to 1949. Chapter VIII focuses on the efforts of the ANC to increase its membership in the 1940s. In Chapter VIII we discuss several reasons why the ANC was unable to significantly increase its membership during the 1940s. One of the more important reasons was governmental opposition. However, we find that governmental opposition was not the sole reason.;Chapter IX is a comparative analysis of social mobilization and political participation in both countries. We find that social mobilization is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to increased political participation. There are intervening variables which must be taken into account to explain changes in levels of political participation over time. The most important of these is the government's response to efforts to influence it. Other significant variables are what we term the 'cost of participation', as well as organizational effectiveness, elite ideology and non-elite goals.