Public opinion and the end of apartheid

Why did whites in South Africa come to support the dismantling of the apartheid system that gave them a monopoly of political power? We use a reformulated version of symbolic politics to address this puzzle, showing that white attitudes toward political change were primarily driven by symbolic predispositions regarding race, ideology, party, and specific leaders, as well as various sorts of threat perceptions. Strong attachments to the National Party and de Klerk, low perceptions of threat, more tolerant racial attitudes, and more socially and politically liberal values increased the likelihood of whites supporting policies consistent with the ending of apartheid. We also find that assessments of the economy, both personal and national, have no influence on this attitude. We use South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council data collected during the crucial 1991–1992 period