Heterogeneity and Convergence in Cultural Logics of Americanness

Recent scholarship suggests that polarization has inflamed political conflict over the boundaries of U.S.national membership. Our study offers an important caveat to this narrative. Using a novel empiricalstrategy that applies latent class modeling to conjoint data, we find that different segments of theAmerican population use different cultural logics to sketch the contours of nationhood. However,these logics are not systematically patterned by partisanship: most Democrats, Republicans, andIndependents articulate a vision of Americanness that fuses ethnocultural criteria with civic-orientedexpectations for membership in America’s imagined community. Our findings complement and extendprior research by showing that different modes of measurement can yield credible evidence of bothpolarization and consensus. Whereas much of the existing literature relies on declarative measures ofpopular nationalism rooted in self-theorization, our design captures more intuitive judgments aboutnational boundaries that are masked in traditional surveys. Consequently, our approach uncoversgreater intraparty heterogeneity and interparty overlap than is often assumed, with two importantimplications. First, symbolic beliefs related to partisanship may be masking widely held ideas aboutnationhood embedded in public culture. Second, partisan debates may not only reflect competingnationalist logics, but contestation over who truly represents shared national values.