Anti-Muslim policy preferences and boundaries of American identity across partisanship
Date
2024-04-12
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Public Policy
Abstract
Does American identity predict preferences for anti-democratic policies that aim to marginalize Muslim Americans? Absent significant priming of inclusive elements of American identity, we argue that individuals with stronger attachments to American identity will be less likely than their counterparts to reject a range of anti-Muslim policies that are antithetical to principles of religious liberty and equality. Across three surveys and multiple measures, American identity powerfully predicts preferences for curbing the civil liberties of Muslim citizens. Particularly striking is the finding that the effect of American identity spans the partisan divide; it consistently explains the endorsement of exclusionary policies among self-identified Democrats, who typically hold more progressive policy positions toward minority groups than Republicans. Overall, our study highlights the contradictory and exclusionary nature of American identity, which has important implications for minority groups constructed as outside the boundaries of Americanness.
Description
This article was originally published in Journal of Public Policy. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X24000060.
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Keywords
American identity, anti-Muslim policies, national identity, Muslims, partisanship
Citation
Lajevardi, Nazita, and Kassra A. R. Oskooii. “Anti-Muslim Policy Preferences and Boundaries of American Identity across Partisanship.” Journal of Public Policy, 2024, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X24000060.