An Empirical Examination of the Frontier Thesis. Settlement and Institutions in Brazil, Russia, Canada and the United States

Paper under review.One of the attributes most consistently highlighted in the literature on frontier society is the tendency to spontaneous social organization. However, despite the resilience of the ‘frontier thesis’ within history and social science, it has not been subject to a rigorous empirical examination. Does it constitute a description only of the social norms and institutions of the western United States, or is it a manifestation of a more general ‘frontier phenomenon’, found in other times and places? In order to answer this question, this article examines data on the nature of social relations in frontier zones in four countries: Brazil, Russia, Canada and the United States. Taking a wide range of survey items, we find that higher levels of voluntary activity, social trust, tolerance of outgroups, and civic protest are distinctive features of frontier life more generally, and not simply a feature of the American historical experience. We suggest that the experience of settlement is conducive to the formation of norms of community solidarity and cooperation, including in the American historical case.