Transformation of Political Ideas in Modern Europe: An Analysis of Party Programs in the Context of National Identity

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the programs of political parties in Western Europe. The object of the study is nationalist ideas and their extreme and radical manifestations within European politics. The authors note the interest of the European political elite in nationalist ideas. This process is related to the possibility of using these ideas to solve acute socio-political conflicts within countries. Economic instability, migration crises, and acute political turbulence impose significant restrictions on the activities of political elites in developed countries. Historical unresolved problems of national identity on the one hand, and the desire to form a true multipolar world on the other, form a different attitude towards the ideas of nation and nationalism. This is reflected in a number of political and open military conflicts in the large space of cultural and socio-political contact between Europe and Russia. The authors draw attention to the fact that nationalist ideas are in some cases addressed by politicians in both Europe and Russia. The danger of the contemporary reevaluation of the ideas of nationalism is that it encourages atypical thinking, while belief in authority ceases to play a cognitive and functional role. The authors offer not only an analysis of the programs of political parties in many European countries, but also calculate their specific weight in the context of national parliaments. This makes it possible to determine the conditional acceptance of these ideas as a basis for the political course of the state.