ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to establish a theoretical framework within which ethnic politics and racism are analysed. The importance of the regulation of the circulation of labour in a post-Fordist state is that it has a central role to play in the changing face of racism in British society. Within this theoretical framework the formation of ethnic communities and organisations and their competition for space for the development of ethnic organisations and the production of ethnic culture provided a fertile ground for the development of ethnic politics. The 1970s were a watershed in the emergence of post-Fordism; these early years in the development of Thatcherism as a social movement allowed ethnic communities to exploit the ungoverned spaces between communities. These included certain forms of ethnic political participation that, with rapid population growth, gave minorities an opportunity to develop structures of leadership and social networks of support whose functions could be both social and political.
