DEMOCRACY AND NATIONALISM IN THE DISCOURSE OF MODERN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THINKING

Abstract

The aim of the article is political analysis of individual conceptual models, theories and judgments of national and foreign scholars on the compatibility of nationalism and democracy (A. Valitskyi, P. Vandych, L. Greenfeld, A. Kappeler, T. Kuzio, V. Lisovyi, L. Nagorna, G. Nadiya, O. Protsenko, and E. Yan). The path of nation-state construction a priori involves a conflict over the coherence of the general and special, public and the particular, the unique and etc. It is obvious that democratic development of a society is impossible without solving a complex of problems related to the coordination of key issues of national and cultural building. Only in the presence of a powerful, democratically organized state it is possible to solve the so-called national issue in a civilized way, to preserve peace and harmony in society. The idea of nationalism in the historiosophical sense is organically linked to the idea of democracy, although this connection is not without controversy. This is due to the fact that the nation is the main subject of democratic and nationalist discourses. The regularity of their organic combination is contained in the very nature of these phenomena, derived from the concept of «nation». It is the nation, as an organized whole, that produces forms of social existence based on the principles of democracy. At the same time, the slogans for the cultural and political self-determination should be seen as the danger of political forces indifferent to the national interests, national culture and identity of the Ukrainian nation or, on the contrary, they profess the ideals of radical nationalism of a totalitarian nature that is incompatible with the inalienable rights of both: individual and national communities. A factor contributing to the consolidation of the nation is the external threat to the security and independence of the state. Ukraine, where under the conditions of external aggression there was a unification of the nation on the basis of patriotism and national dignity was not an exception. According to sociologists, support for Ukraine’s independence clearly correlates with a sense of patriotism: the higher the level of patriotic feelings of the respondents, the more they support the declaration of Independence.