Cómo aborda el pensamiento de H. Kelsen las cuestiones relacionadas con la identidad nacional

Abstract

The proposal of the austrian jurist Han Kelsen regarding national identity and the nation state falls within her de-ideologising (purifying) conception of the state and of the law. The non-substantialist focus of the national question is implicit in her thinking. She only addresses this question in the legal-formal sense: as within the scope of the personal validity of the law, and as a set of legal rules that formally bind the individual with the law of a state. The bond of the citizen is with the state and its law, and this results in the legal-formal bond of nationality. In this sense, it might be said that issues of national identity in Kelsen's thinking is reduced to mere legal form: to the legal-formal bond of holding a passport. The points of view of J. Habermas, L. Ferrajoli and J. Keane on this issue -each with their nuances and within their specific fields- largely take Kelsen's Kantian-based approach.