身份问题是影响许多发展中国家政治发展的一个重要因素。在整合原生主义和工具主义两派观点的基础上，本文提出了一种身份形成的政治动员模型，认为身份的形成既不像原生主义学派坚持的具有类似生物学的“遗传倾向”，也不像工具主义学派坚持的是一种“想象的共同体”，相反，它是特定时刻政治精英对原生身份有意操控的结果。基于这一分析框架，本文解释了孟加拉国面临的身份政治问题。语言和宗教构成了孟加拉国原生身份的两个主要来源，经过英国殖民统治者、巴基斯坦政治精英和孟加拉国政治精英在不同时期的政治动员，先后形成了东孟加拉邦、东巴基斯坦和今天的孟加拉国。这一身份变迁经历，既揭示了孟加拉国作为现代民族国家的演变历史，也影响着其未来的政治发展。
Identity politics has been an important variable influencing the political development in many developing countries. Based on the integration of the views of primitivism and instrumentalism，this article proposes a political mobilization model of identity formation. It argues that identity formation is neither a “genetic tendency” similar to biology as the primitivist school insists，nor an “imagined community” as the instrumentalism school insists. On the contrary，it is the result of the intentional manipulation of primitive identity by the political elites in a specific context. Based on this analytical framework，this article explains the identity politics in Bangladesh. Language and religion constitute the two main sources of Bangladesh’s primitive identity. Through the political mobilization by ruling elites such as British colonial rulers，Pakistani political elites and Bangladeshi political elites in different periods，the East Bengal，East Pakistan and today’s Bangladesh identity has been formed respectively. This transformation of identity in this area not only constitutes an important part of the history of Bangladesh as a modern nation-state，but also will influence political development in the future.
