Nationhood Lab’s director shares the project’s findings on a rebooted U.S. national narrative for the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility
In a new essay published by the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility, Nationhood Lab director Colin Woodard shared the Pell Center project’s findings on a shared national story for the United States based on the values in the Declaration of Independence.
The essay, published June 25, laid out the methodology, polling results, and final script content for a 21st century story of national purpose, identity, and belonging, one that can hold the country together and defend the republic.
It followed an essay Woodard wrote for the conservative, Washington, DC-based think tank in November 2023, arguing the U.S. was unlikely to survive if a supermajority of Americans couldn’t find agreement on the broad questions and a shared national narrative.
“Protecting our liberal democratic experiment requires that Americans set aside their partisan or policy differences,” Woodard wrote in the new essay. “But we need a script around which to unite—a story of the common purpose we share.”
Woodard has presented on this issue to a wide range of audiences, including the to the Democratic caucus of the U.S. Senate, the Milken Institute’s Global Conference, the inaugural meeting of the States Forum, at the University of South Carolina and National Defense University, and at AEI itself, where he joined Yuval Levin (author of “The Great Debate” and “The Fractured Republic” and Ryan Streeter (a former aide to George W. Bush and Indian Gov. Mike Pence.
Nationhood Lab, a project of Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, focuses on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the centrifugal forces threatening the federation’s stability. One pillar of the project aimed to develop, rigorously test, and disseminate articulate a renewed civic national narrative for the United States.