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Debates

Each debate page sets out the question, the positions, the evidence each side used, contested readings of shared evidence, underused sources and the best-evidenced works. Works counts the works engaging the debate; Statistical works is the share using statistical or econometric analysis; Systematic claims is the share of key claims resting on systematic data.

Debate Works Most published Statistical works Systematic claims
Liberal vs revisionist: was apartheid functional or dysfunctional for capitalist growth? 81 1973-2007 6% 9%
Cheap labour thesis and the function of the reserves 78 1973-2006 5% 5%
Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement 61 1978-2006 13% 15%
The mine migrant labour system: origins, recruitment, foreign labour and stabilisation 50 1974-1997 14% 11%
Why apartheid ended: reform, transition and elite bargaining 46 1984-2009 9% 6%
Farm labour: mechanisation, labour shedding, wages and labour control 44 1976-2012 14% 10%
Homelands, separate development, decentralisation and removals 43 1971-2011 14% 13%
The job colour bar, white labour and its erosion 42 1973-2011 14% 11%
Black trade unions: growth, wage effects, Wiehahn and strategy 37 1984-2001 22% 12%
The state and capital: instrumentalism, autonomy and fractions of capital 36 1976-1997 0% 8%
Did the apartheid economy fail? Growth, productivity, investment and the post-1970s crisis 35 1990-2009 40% 19%
Agrarian transition to capitalism and the fate of the African peasantry 31 1982-1995 3% 2%
Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism 31 1974-2012 6% 10%
Industrialisation, protection and industrial structure 30 1974-2009 7% 16%
Agricultural policy, productivity, farm size and land reform 30 1972-2012 17% 14%
Data reliability and econometric method 26 1976-2008 50% 27%
Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War 25 1909-2006 8% 9%
Post-apartheid economic policy, governance and corruption 24 1994-2006 21% 10%
Influx control, pass laws and African urbanisation 23 1975-1995 4% 11%
Finance, capital flight, the 1985 debt crisis and banking 22 1986-2008 5% 9%
Worker consciousness, strikes and conflict on the mines and shop floor 22 1980-2005 14% 8%
Unemployment: causes, measurement and labour market institutions 21 1976-2006 33% 18%
Racial wage gaps, wage convergence and wage determination 20 1974-2010 45% 17%
White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems 20 1941-1996 5% 36%
Resistance and liberation movements 17 1985-2003 0% 3%
Historiographical approaches 17 1985-2004 0% 1%
Urban segregation, Group Areas and the apartheid city 15 1987-2006 27% 10%
Living standards, health and social policy 12 1985-2012 50% 21%
Education, Bantu Education and skills 9 1986-2005 11% 11%
Long-run legacy and persistence of apartheid 8 2003-2023 75% 20%
Census, race classification and demographic data 6 1995-2009 33% 40%
Coloured Labour Preference policy in the Western Cape 6 1971-1984 0% 7%