European integration and human rights markers of Ukraine’s cultural and legal identity: a sociological approach

The relevance of the study is determined by the real prospect of granting Ukraine European Union membership, which makes it necessary to reflect on the theoretical and methodological foundations of understanding the European integration process and reveal the heuristic potential of socio-philosophical approaches as means of such understanding. The purpose of the article is to identify the conceptual and methodological possibilities of non-classical sociological approaches development to solve the task of describing the political and legal aspects of Ukraine’s European integration and the connections between this process and transnational standardization of human rights in the European Union. Basic research methods. The investigation has been carried out based on the methodology of Pierre Bourdieu's constructivist structuralism, supplemented by categories of needs and interests as a generative mechanism of struggle and cooperation in the field of power, politics and law; as well as the concept of identity, which enables a more versatile sociological and legal understanding of Ukraine’s European integration process. Research results. It is proved that "democracy", "human rights" and "rule of law" are terminological designations of human rights standardization spheres and means of building the EU legal identity and the EU legal field. The normative content and meaning given to these principles by the EU bodies is the standard that enables the inclusion of Ukraine in the structure of the political and legal field of the EU. At the same time, the existing institutional system of ensuring human rights standards in combination with the consumerist type of habit contribute to the formation of the EU member states citizens not so much as a collective but as an individual identity of the liberal type.

Pierre Bourdieu, social constructivism, political and legal field, European integration of Ukraine, International human rights standards, European cultural and legal identity