Keywords
identity
anthropological paradigm
legislative process
ideology
social psychology
social legal consciousness
parliamentarism
How to Cite
Abstract
Background. An electoral campaign is a phenomenon that, on the one hand, depends on, but at the same time directly influences, the legal process in the state where it is conducted. The results of the campaign are usually determined by a set of psychological variables. Thus, the article identifies legal and psychological determinants of the legislative process, which is conducted by elected members of representative institutional authorities in states that are defined as «full democracies».
Objective. The main purpose of the article is to characterize the influence of legal and psychological components (that are political in nature) on the formation of the legal agenda in democratic states, which would include finding out how legal and socio-psychological factors directly influence the strategies invoked by political parties (who are the main legislative actors in full democracies) while conducting the election campaigning process.
Methods. The article uses empirical analysis of the phenomenon of identity and ideology and its use in political parties’ campaigning and how it influences the results of the elections. It is shown how these factors can determine the decision-making process and how political parties adapt to certain changes in legal and psychological variables during the election campaigning process. The method of structural functionalism was used to divide the campaigning psychological instrument of political positioning into four different types. The case study was used to compare the use of political positioning in various democratic countries.
Results. The article studies the regularities of identity determinism in the modern law-making process. The relevance of the results includes a case study of the direct influence of identity on electoral choice on the formation of government coalitions in several states and the determination of the legal development of the state itself. The article examines the use of identity positioning by legal actors within the political and legal process and during the election campaigns in the Italian Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States of America, Canada, Sweden and Taiwan.
Conclusion. The legal-behavioral paradigmatic approach used in the article provides the connection between voting behavioral patterns and socio-legal consciousness phenomena. Depending on that, the following four types of political party positioning are underlined: ideological, identity, systematic, and external positioning that are actively used during election campaigning with the aim of psychological influence on the electorate. The article provides a differentiation between the legal and psychological determinants of the four political positioning types. Legal determinants usually define the institutional aspects of the campaigning process, while psychological determinants are directly connected to socio-political aspects.
Keywords: legal psychology; identity; anthropological paradigm; legislative process; ideology; social psychology; social legal consciousness; parliamentarism.
Received: May 21, 2026
Accepted: July 20, 2026
Published: July 30, 2026
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