Pilietinės Tautos Kūrimas: Galimybės Ir Ribos
Civic Nation Building: Possibilities And Limits

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to assess theoretical justification and practical possibilities of the project of civic nation-building. The study tries to substantiate the claim that civic nation is a form of political self-organisation that is unable to ensure stability of a political entity. Based on ethnosymbolist approach to nationalism studies, concepts of ethnic, civic and political nation are differentiated and their relationship with the concept of civic society defined. The emergence of theoretical distinction of so-called civic and ethnic nations is explained through different historic ways of state consolidation and political nation-building. Theoretical and practical challenges of the civic nation project for a democratically governed political body and it's stability are considered. Given that civic nationalism not only recognizes all the citizens as members of the political nation, but also assimilates them into the ethnocultural nation, it is concluded that civic nation as a citizens’ loyalty base rooted only in citizenship is doomed to political instability, something confirmed by the infamous experiment of multiculturalism, de facto based on the concept of civic nation-building.

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