My research investigates the influence of American political culture on public policymaking from a feminist and critical race perspective. Specifically, I examine the cultural resonances of key terms deployed by political actors in pursuit of their policy goals. In my dissertation, “’Collective Addictions’ in U.S. Political Culture,” I consider why some public policy areas are consistently characterized as “addictions;” investigating what politicians, the media, and laypeople mean when they claim that “America is addicted to oil,” or welfare is “addicting” to its recipients.

Using digital archival research and ordinary language analysis, I argue that actors across the political spectrum deploy the term’s racialized and gendered meanings to activate national anxieties about personal autonomy and national self-determination, fears foundational to American political culture and accentuated in a diversifying polity. I find that actors employ “addiction” as a heuristic device to characterize complex political issues, using the term’s potent cultural meanings to further their policy goals.