Study On Constitution Identity, A Part Of Political Identity Among Citizens

Our country has always been attaching great importance to the status and the function of constitution.As the fundamental law in our country,constitution can not only protect the fundamental rights of citizens,but promote the healthy and orderly development of the whole society.Currently,China is concentrating on comprehensively promoting the rule of law,so it is very important to play the role of constitution,the fundamental law in our legal system.Then how to truly set up the authority of constitution and how to effectively give play to the role of constitution,the anwser is closely connected with citizens’ knowing and understanding constitution,trusting constitution and supporting constitution from the bottom of heart,which is also included in the main topic of this paper:constitution identity.Political identity,as a kind of well-known political psychology,is built on the study of identity psychology and includes different branches,such as class identity,Party identity,system identity and so on.Broadly speaking,law,including constitution should belong to the system of politics;therefore,the identity of law,including constitution identity is also ought to be included in political identity.Constitution identity,as a positive state of mind,can not only make citizens deeply know about constitution and further understand the core values and meaning of it,but also exert a great effect on maintaining the stability of legal system and promoting the smooth realization of national constitution governance.American jurist Berman once said:”Law must be beliefs,otherwise it will be non-exisiting.”Hence,in order to make constitution not be a red tape which is laid aside and neglected and to make citizens understand constitution,believe in constitution and have faith in constitution,this paper will start an exploration in constitution identity to understand this issue deeply.This paper includes four parts and the logic structure of this paper is based on “what is it,why is it and how to do about it”. In the first part,constitution identity is devided into four psychological levels,that is cognitive level,emotional level,volitional level and practical level,which is based on analying the related concepts of constitution identity.This part provides a theoretical basis and logical foundation for the issue we will discuss in the following part.The second part of this paper puts forward three main problems in the process of citizens identifying constitution according to the four psychological levels which devided in the last part,the three main problems are:the low cognitive level of constitution,the lack of trust in constitution and the tendency of observing the constitution in apperance among most of citizens.Generally speaking,the first two parts of this paper are the basic analysis and exploration of constitution identity,which is the main part of “what is it”.The third part of this paper explores the problems which have been discussed in the second part and analyzes the reasons from three aspects,such as the constitution education and constitution publicity,the lack of availability for constitution in the social life and the nonobservance of constitution among a part of officials who should have set a good example for citizens.So this part can be incorporated into “why is it”.The last part,which will response to the problems rasied before,is aimed to analyze countermeasures.These measures mainly include three aspects,such as the hard-working of the country and social organizations(mainly in education and publicity),the guarantee of usability for constitution in all aspects and the inspiration of officials’ initiative in strictly observing constitution.The fourth part of this paper finishes the logic part of “how to do” and makes the structure of this paper holistic and systemic.