Political citizenship

Citizenship is an idea with many meanings and dimensions. It is often defined barely, as a formal status, 'the legal bond between the individual and the State', and related rights and responsibilities, but it also contains or has acquired in centuries of development, social and ethical dimensions, based in belonging, solidarity and nationalism (thus the exclusion of 'non-citizens'), and more recently, in universal values of dignity and human rights. Foremost and unavoidably, however, and certainly in its historic origins, citizenship is a political condition, realised in political activities and institutions. It is, first, about rnembership in a political community. [Introduction]