Doctrinal Alignment Between American Democratic Socialism and Marxist Communism: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Policy Positions and Their Anticipated Political, Economic, and Social Consequences

Abstract

Public debate increasingly equates American democratic socialism with Marxist communism, yet this equation is rarely subjected to systematic, evidence-based measurement. This dissertation examines the degree to which the documented policy positions of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) align with the doctrinal commitments of classical Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Gramscian strategy, and Frankfurt School critical theory, and it traces the political, economic, and social consequences that follow where DSA-supported policies are enacted. The study employs a convergent parallel mixed-methods design that integrates qualitative content analysis of primary DSA documents with quantitative analysis of publicly available data on legislative behavior, fiscal outcomes, and public opinion. Fourteen frequently attributed DSA policy positions were coded against a purpose-built, ten-dimension Doctrinal Alignment Index (DAI) scored on a 0-to-3 scale. Findings reveal selective rather than comprehensive alignment. The mean DAI score across all positions was 1.16 of a possible 3.0, indicating partial and uneven correspondence with Marxist doctrine. Alignment was strongest in redistribution, decommodification, and Gramscian cultural-institutional strategy, and weakest in Leninist vanguardism and comprehensive social ownership, the dimensions most central to revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. Hypotheses H1 through H3 were supported: DSA discourse emphasizes welfare-state redistribution over revolutionary rupture, and DSA-endorsed legislators occupy measurably more leftward roll-call positions (Cohen's d = -0.40, p = .013). Contrary to expectation, H4 was not supported; matching analyses (propensity-score d = -0.410; coarsened-exact d = -0.503) show the ideological gap does not shrink after controlling for district characteristics. H5 through H8 were largely supported: rhetoric outpaces enacted legislation, 6 of 14 examined positions could not be substantiated as official national policy, and framing a policy as socialist reduced public support by an average of 18.8 percentage points (p = .002). The study concludes that popular claims of doctrinal equivalence are empirically overstated, while genuine areas of Marxist alignment persist in redistributive and hegemonic domains. These findings offer scholars a replicable measurement instrument and offer policymakers and the public a disciplined basis for distinguishing documented commitments from political attribution.