Dialectical Interaction Between National Culture and Civic Culture: A Study on the Mechanism of Construction, Transformation and Influence

The dialectical relationship between national culture and civic culture has become central to understanding the cultural foundations of modern nation-states. Under conditions of globalization and intensified international competition, culture operates not only as a marker of collective identity but also as a crucial source of national soft power and social cohesion. Engaging with ongoing theoretical debates on cultural construction, this study examines the dynamics interplay between top-down cultural frameworks and bottom-up cultural practices. It combines perspectives from cultural hegemony, cultural consumption, and cultural psychology to analyze the two-way processes through which national culture shapes civic practice via ideology, law, and cultural production, while civic culture simultaneously reshapes national culture through consumer behavior, subcultural formations, and shared mental dispositions. Drawing on case analyses of contemporary Chinese cultural practices in the digital era, the study shows that this interaction generates both tensions and new possibilities. The findings indicate that the vitality of national culture depends less on unilateral imposition than on sustained negotiation with lived cultural practices. Strengthening this constructive interaction therefore offers an important pathway for fostering cultural confidence in the twenty-first century.