“Constitutional Psychology”: On Specifying the Term

Despite the fact that the new and newest constitutions of the world turn out to be related in structure and in some elements of content, which is associated with the reception and implementation of the norms of international law that participants in world interaction must observe, basic laws have distinctive features characteristic for certain states and formed under the influence of special traditions, which are reflected in constitutional psychology. The aim of the proposed research is an attempt to clarify the term “constitutional psychology”. The objectives of the research are: consideration and analysis of the concepts “state tradition”, “legal culture”, “constitutional legal culture”, “constitutional legal consciousness” associated with the term, since they have strong interdependence and mutual influence. Particular attention is focused on constitutional psychology as its extra-legal element. The theoretical basis of the research is works by E.S. Anichkin, K.V. Aranovsky, P.P. Baranov, N.V. Vitruk, T.A. Zhumabekova, V.V. Nikityaeva, M.V. Salnikov, E.V. Titova, V.I. Chervonyuk, and other prominent authors. The normative basis was the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation. The main research methods are: (1) formal logical, which made it possible to clarify and generalize scholars' opinions on the issue of state tradition, constitutional and legal culture and constitutional psychology; (2) formal legal, which contributed to the substantiation of the position on the presence of an intensification of the tendency of universalization of constitutional legal norms, the analysis of the reform of constitutional legal norms. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that constitutional psychology is closely intertwined with the constitutional-legal tradition, under the influence of which the attitude to constitutional reality is being formed. As a result, she specifies that tradition can be considered not only from a formal legal point of view, as a continuity of norms, but also as the established unwritten rules of behavior, the psychological microclimate of a single state. It is the features of constitutional-legal traditions reflected in the basic law that determine the key difference in the system of emerging and formed legal relations - the constitutional identity of each individual state. This identity is an extra-legal reflection of constitutional reality, which includes people's attitude to, perception of, and reflection on certain events and phenomena occurring in the state. In other words, constitutional psychology is the very “legal mentality” that informally determines the non-identity of states, that is, their constitutional identity.

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