Rugged Individualists? Rural Identity, Collectivism, and Government Attitudes

• In Event: Urban-Rural Divides in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Previous literature highlights the role of place-based identity in the U.S. and elsewhere when understanding the urban-rural political divide along voting lines, populism, attitudes towards the government, and more. However, it is unclear what undergirds such identities to make them politically relevant. Previous related literature has found that certain values and group-based attitudes help link rural identity to political attitudes, including moral traditionalism, opposition to cosmopolitanism, and more. This literature implies that individualism – e.g., valuing independence and self-reliance - is related to rurality in the U.S., while other work suggests collectivism – e.g., valuing inter-reliance and working toward collective good - is more prevalent among rural areas (i.e., the urbanization hypothesis). Such a distinction matters for political behavior, as individualism and collectivism have been associated with distinct policy attitudes, partisanship, fiscal ideology, attitudes toward government, affective polarization, and more. In particular, support for decreased government intervention is associated with individualism in the U.S, while collectivism is associated with a desire for stronger centralized government.

Using a demographically representative survey of American adults (N = 5,483), we investigate whether individualism or collectivism is more central to rural identity and how this relates to attitudes toward the federal government. We find that those who more strongly identify as rural are significantly more likely to hold collectivist values, especially among Democrats and Independents. Among Republicans, neither collectivism nor individualism is predominantly associated with rural identity strength. We further show that people who more strongly identify as rural are more likely to view attributes of their communities positively – e.g., good job opportunities, safety, cost of living, quality of schools, and raising children. This points to the role of collectivism and positive in-group attitudes being central to rural identity, rather than seeing such communities as in decline or doing poorly, as predominant narratives on rural identity in the U.S. suggest. Finally, people who more strongly identify as rural and are relatively higher in collectivism are more likely to see the federal government as having too much power, while also believing that the federal government does not do enough to help rural areas. This complicates straightforward interpretations of collectivism typically being associated with desire for a stronger federal government. Importantly, these findings do not hold when using rural residency instead of rural identity, making it clear that seeing rural as a part of one’s sense of self is more important than rural residential status itself.

Authors

• Kristin Kay Lunz Trujillo, Boston College

• Alee Lockman, Texas A&M School of Public Health

• Timothy Herbert Callaghan, Boston University

• Alva Ferdinand, Texas A&M University School of Public Health