International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 11; June 2013 223 The Construction of National Identity in Modern Times: Theoretical Perspective Hüsamettin İnaç Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dumlupinar University, FEAS Political Science And International Relations Department Feyzullah Ünal Assist. Prof. Dr. Dumlupinar University, FEAS Public Administration Department Abstract Identity politics can be seen as the general framework of today’s world politics. Ethnic, sectarian, religious and national identities are prominent as the referential points of international politics. Nevertheless, it is not so easy to comprehend what is identity and how the national identity can be built in different socio-political circumstances. In this context, this study argues that identity is a construction and formed in accordance with the exigencies of the existing conjuncture. In line with this argumentation we attempt to elaborate the transition from the ethnic identities into the national one in accompanying the identity formation mechanism and national building strategies in theoretical perspectives. Key Words: Identity, national identity, identity formation mechanisms, nation-building strategies, identity politics. 1. Introduction Recent political arena suffers under hesitation and contradictory trends between globalisation and multiculturalism and between localisation and ethnic identities, and seeks monoculturalism in respect of countries and people with similar culture coming together in cultural, social, economic co-operations and strategic alliances with those of different cultures and various civilizations that tend to be left outside of these co-operations because of their ‘differences’. In this context, identity question is at the agenda for the people who have a fear to lose their own identities. Identity is a social phenomenon which starts with the identity formation process by means of interaction with the ‘other’ or against the ‘other’. The individual tends to internalise and practice the behaviours, values and norms of the society where he or she has lived in, in order to provide his or her psychological and physical security. In this way, to get an identity one must either identify oneself with someone and/or be perceived as identical to someone else. The continuous and permanent internalisation processes of social setting are resulted in the construction of an individual identity within a social dimension. 2. Definition of Identity Identity is a description or, in other words, the definition of the existence and belongingness. The identity consists of two pillars: identifier and identified. (Eralp 1997:19) In our concern, the individual is subjected identified as a ‘self’ and the society is main identifier as an ‘other’. It is an alterity, otherness and an ambiguous notion which gets its meaning from what it is not, from the ‘other’ as Derrida argued: “ All identities can possibly exist with their ‘differance’ (with an “a”) There is no culture or cultural identity which does not have its ‘other’ of the ‘self’ ” (Derrida 1992: 129). Because the identity means to the ‘other’, it is defined, determined and nominated by the ‘other’. Nevertheless, Derrida distinguishes the word “difference” and “differance” as ‘the identity as sameness’ from ‘the identity as equivalence’ respectively, which is indicated in his text “ ‘Difference’ in Speech and Phenomena” written for the counter-argumentation to Heidegger’s essay “Identity and Difference”. On the one hand, differance indicates ‘difference’ as distinction, inequality, or discernibility; on the other, it expresses the interposition of ‘delay’, the interval of a spacing and temporalising that puts off until ‘later’ what is presently denied, the possible that is presently impossible” (Ibid.:130).