ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the longue duree social construction of citizenship from ancient Greece to today's global system. It suggests some important things about cities today, which, again, do not map simply onto theoretical orientation or fall neatly into disciplinary domains. The book gives a sense of the variability of local institutions and the ways in which they overlap, fold over one another, and create different interstices that make action possible—even by the marginalized. It offers insights on more than one of the three key dimensions—cities, organizational and institutional structures, and the political sphere itself. The book stabilizes the indeterminacy and possibility of "political moments" for use in social scientific analysis. It resists the premise that the possibilities for gaining "urban citizenship" are best measured through organizational and institutional articulation.
