The Political Identity Cover Image

A politikai identitás
The Political Identity

Author(s): Miklós Bakk
Subject(s): Political Sciences, Politics and society, Politics and Identity
Published by: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület
Keywords: political identity; sociology; political science; discourse analysis;community;

Summary/Abstract: The present article tackles the problem of political identity from a philosophical point of view, building on various theories of and contributions to specific (sub)disciplines within sociology, political science and discourse analysis. It is based primarily on the hermeneutical tradition, rather than on an analytical view of language. It puts forward a tri-polar model of political identity, based mainly on the We/They opposition and several conceptualisations of discursiveness. When developing this model I departed from Koselleck’s concept of “acting communities” and focused on the discursive aspects of the We/They opposition. Considering this opposition as being discursive, the paper presents a conception of political communities as communities that are continuously delimiting themselves by a beneficial combination of self-assertive actions and self-denominations, which are permanently related to what is seen from the point of view of the respective communities as ‘They’.

  • Issue Year: LXVIII/2006
  • Issue No: 1-2
  • Page Range: 1-13
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Hungarian