[1][2] His work identifying multiple, competing traditions of national identity including “liberalism, republicanism, and ascriptive forms of Americanism” has been described as "groundbreaking.
[7] Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and raised in Springfield, Illinois,[8] Smith graduated with a B.A.
[10] Smith taught at Yale University[9] from 1980 to 2001, as the Alfred Cowles Professor of Government and the co-director of the Center for the Study of Race, Inequality, and Politics.
In 2001 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science.
He was vice president of the American Political Science Association in 2008–2009 and co-president of the Migration and Citizenship section of APSA from 2013 to 2015.