ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a theoretical reworking of the Althusserian concept of interpellation. The conceptual problem of explaining the national political community, it is argued, is a problem of explaining the national individual. According to Grotius, a people are a people before it gives itself to a king. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's, On the Social Contract is the true foundation of society. Since Rousseau's Social Contract, political theory has recognized that the constitution of a people or political community is a necessary condition for the existence of the state. David Easton's examination of the conditions that contribute to or cause the formation of this cohesive cement illustrates the analytical weakness of approaches that have arisen from what John Gunnell has termed the behavioral reformation within political theory. Easton stresses that although politicization is the general cause of community identification, ideology represents a special cause.
