The Ideological Structure of American Belief Systems

How accurate are popular assumptions about which opinions “go together”? Literature on American public opinion has long debated the extent to which the public is ideologically consistent. While understandings of American ideology are overwhelmingly operationalized with a unidimensional liberal-to-conservative spectrum, scholars as well as recent polling data suggest that a plurality of Americans seem to fall outside of this dichotomy. However, discussions of worsening polarization further complicate this picture, as they predict increasingly consolidated and differentiated opinion poles. This project then addresses these debates by mapping the dimensional structure underlying contemporary belief systems in the United States. I use recent national survey data to inductively assess opinion co-occurrence, by relying on a combination of belief network analyses and dimensionality reduction techniques. Findings show that a unidimensional liberal-conservative axis does not adequately represent American opinion variation. Instead, a multidimensional structure suggests meaningful belief heterogeneity even among opinion areas previously characterized as polarized. The project explores the implications of this multidimensionality for political actors’ efforts to mobilize the public.

 

Firdaous Sbaï is a PhD candidate in the sociology department at the University of Toronto. Her work is broadly nested in political sociology and quantitative methods. Her research addresses questions spanning ideological heterogeneity, social movements, carceral systems, and violence. She previously received the Best Student Paper award from the Canadian Sociological Association.