NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE NATIONAL IDEA AS A FACTOR OF STATE-BUILDING

Abstract

Although it is obvious that an adequate account of the notion of national identity requires a certain understanding of national consciousness, there is still no generally accepted theory regarding the latter. The article considers the connection of state-building and nation-building. The most important tool of nation-building is the dissemination of national consciousness and national identity. The article analyzes the creation of a national idea and considers the major reasons for the incompleteness of Ukrainian nation-building, which results from a lack of political consensus and a comparatively low level of the cultural development of Ukrainian society. For this purpose, we have researched various political materials from web resources using the tools of a structural-functional approach, discourse analysis and content analysis. The study opens deeper insights into the genuine values, interests, motives, stereotypes, attitudes, strategies and tactics of some politicians. No aspect of national idea is more more puzzling than nation consciousness and national identity. Despite the lack of any agreed upon theory of national consciousness, there is a widespread, if less than universal, understand that an adequate account of national identity requires a clear understanding of it. We need to understand both what nation consciousness, national identity, national idea, nation and state-building. Therefore the problem of Ukrainian nation and state building results from contradictory ideas od Ukrainian politicians, the lack of a common national idea as such, and the dissemination of false information among the electorate.