Samenvatting

In recent discussions on ‘citizenship’, the concept is oddly dealt with as if it would have originated shortly before the French Revolution and would have meaning in a nation state context only. During at least seven centuries before that, however, it had a crucial importance in the development of Western-European cities. Citizenship, being primarily based on an exclusion from the jurisdiction of local rulers (privilege) which then opens opportunities for the inclusion of citizens in systems of self-rule, has been closely connected with law as from the start. In the article a model developed by Sassen (2006) is used to reconstruct the development of ‘citizenship’ with special reference to the transfer of its elements, often with a considerable change of meaning and function, from one into the other of the four social formations to be distinguished. It is argued that an extended perspective, that acknowledges citizenship and law before its usurpation by the nation state, may be relevant to our assessment of recent developments towards ‘transnational’ forms of citizenship.