Piper, Laurence2023-06-232023-06-232023Piper, L. et al. (2023). Whites and democracy in South Africa. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 61(1), 123-125. https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.21770021743-9094https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2177002http://hdl.handle.net/10566/9141In this wide-ranging book, Professor Roger Southall interrogates the attitudes ofwhite South Africans in respect of politics, democracy, and race relations in thecountry. The book is organised into three sections: thefirst is historical, focusingon South Africa as a white-dominated settler society that transitioned to a formalnon-racial democracy, and the attitudes of white South Africans in regard to thishistory. The second section deals with white attitudes towards democracy after1994, unpacked in relation to policy, party, and identity concerns. The thirdfocuses on the future of white people in South African politics.There are ample interesting and rich insights in this text, many of which couldhave been further developed in relation to the volume of supporting contextualand theoretical content. Of these, however, two arguments stand out. Thefirst isthat, despite benefitting from a racist settler society historically, ordinary whiteSouth Africans have largely embraced democracy today.enDemocracyPoliticsSouth AfricaRaceApartheidArticle