ABSTRACT
The contextualized approach to citizenship advanced in this chapter encompasses a twofold enterprise. It critically questions the exclusiveness of universal concepts of citizenship to open the "boundaries" of citizenship. The chapter argues that previous experiences with citizenship as a component in the process of modern state-building contributed to form expectations about citizenship as a policy. It draws socially constructive approach develops the constitutive and historical elements of citizenship. It also draws attention to the political impact of the idea of citizenship as one crucial component of modern state-building process. The chapter elaborates on the meaning of contextualized belonging for the post national practice of citizenship. In the broadest sense citizenship can be defined as setting the terms for the institutionalized relation between citizen and polity/community. The chapter concludes with the creation of the idea of citizenship as a state-building component can be assessed from empirical studies of citizenship practice.
