Civilizational Model and Identification of Individuals with Macropolitical Communities (on the Problem of Sovereignty)

Abstract

This article analyses four foundations of the individual identification with macropolitical communities at the level of civilizations and a problem of political sovereignty in a context of multiple modernities theory. The specifics of the civilizational model at the “We as a community” level lies in the principle of “sacred vertical”. Locally fixed “cores” of civilizations are represented by those who carry special sacred ideas and cultural practices, which coincide with “the transcendent purpose of the mankind”. The latter are opposed to those who do not have such practices at all, or have them to a lesser extent (the limitrophe states). “The significant Others” in this civilizational model appear to be other civilizational communities, which strengthen transcivilizational cooperation (in concepts of S. Eisenstadt and J. Arnason), or “alien” civilization — the potential “enemies” in the context of the “clash of civilizations” (S. Huntington). Depending on how you structure the bases for the construction of civilizational identification various aspects of collective political memory are applied. For example, ethnocentric version puts greater emphasis on collective sufferings and victories of the “core people” of particular civilization community. In the interpretation of the empire by philosopher V. Kantor potential heroes or victims may be so called “Russian Europeans”. In the mixed national — civilizational version of the identification a wider repertoire of collective political memory will be offered, including its Eurasian component (V. Pantin). In terms of the political space the original flexibility of boundaries in the civilizational model, organized by principle “from the core to the periphery” can foster geopolitical aspirations to expand the boundaries of political space towards the limitrophe states. The relatively flexible linkage to a geographical space (with the necessary preservation of the “civilizational core”) and aspirations to further expansion of the civilization distinguishes civilizational model from the national one promoting the formation of a special type of its boundaries — “the frontiers”.