Phenomenology of Identity in Socio-Political and Constitutional Legal Studies

The category of «identity» has migrated into the conceptual framework of jurisprudence, including constitutional law from other social sciences and humanities. In this regard, the main part of the paper consistently explores the facets of the phenomenon of identity within the framework of four blocks: 1) in socio-anthropological and 2) national-political aspects, 3) considers identity as a phenomenon of legal reality through a synonymous series («legal style», «legal culture», «legal memory»), 4) explores the doctrine of constitutional identity as a kind of meta-level of ontological and institutional (positivized) existence of identity in law. The multidimensional semantic dichotomy of identity in legal studies is noted: as a state of uniqueness (distinct identity) and sameness (community); as a result of subjective self-determination (reflexive irrational act) and a catalog of objectivist parameters of state political, regulatory and legal systems; as a product of the synergy of classical positivism, universal legal values and national legal culture. According to the author, in the logic of interference and diffraction of multiple meanings, constitutional identity, on the one hand, is found in a kind of normative «core» of system-forming constitutional values, the definition of which is proposed in the paper. On the other hand, it can be presented as the quintessence of legal and extralegal factors that determine the national constitutional order in a particular historical period. The doctrine of constitutional identity thus integrates several interpenetrating levels: axiological, national, and normative.