Operationalizing the “American Dream”: A Comparison of Approaches

Institutional anomie theory (IAT) attributes the relatively high levels of violent crime in United States to a social structure characterized by institutional imbalance towards economic dominance and cultural ethos known as American Dream which emphasizes individual material success. One greatest challenges testing IAT lies how measure these central structural constructs. While extant research has largely coalesced around operationalization imbalance, measurement culture been markedly inconsistent. Such inconsistency may account for more equivocal support its dynamics relative dynamics. Using data on 47 countries, this study compares several approaches operationalizing explores whether different operationalizations produce consistent findings. Study results provide mixed regardless approach is used indicate that taken can result entirely conclusions. We discuss implications findings future relationship between crime.