A dissertation presented to the Faculty of Princeton University in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of Politics. Abstract: The thesis is concerned with the relationship between urban poverty and politics in general and with the way in which race intrudes on this relationship in the South African context in particular. More specifically it is concerned with political resources in the form of mobilised manpower, leadership and articulated organization, with the fashion in which these are created, (or fail to be created) by the urban poor, with the manner in which they, as political actors, project these resources in pursuit of social power and influence, and with the role of the state in containing the subsequent pressures upon it.