Power, Individualism, and Collective Self Perception in the USA

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that the key element in the shaping of the habitus of Americans has been their very long-term, virtually unbroken, experience of their country becoming more and more powerful vis-à-vis its neighbours. An increasing sense of their own powerfulness is related to the "individualism" that has so often been discussed as a key characteristic of the American "national character." The long-term process of habitus formation has had important consequences for the role of the USA in world affairs since the Second World War, and may continue to do so in a future marked for the first time by a long-term decline in American power.